People seemed interested in my post about Uncle Al, so today I decided to move on to my Aunt Millie, one of my father’s sisters. Why choose Al and Millie, since this was a family of eight siblings (actually nine, but one died when she was eight or nine, or so)? It’s mainly because Al had no children, and Millie had only one son (now deceased) and no grandchildren with whom I have ever had any connection. I would be afraid to write about an aunt or uncle, and have a cousin (their child) tell me that I had insulted their parent. I once read something that Philip Roth wrote. This is certainly not a quote (and barely a paraphrase), but he said that if you don’t have the strength to write terrible things about your relatives for fear that your family will get mad at you…..you are not meant to be a writer.

I will start writing about Aunt Millie by writing about her only child, her son whose name, I am sure, was Robert, but who was always (as far as I know) called Bobby….Bobby Rich. Bobby was about ten years older than me, and we were certainly not ever close, although when I was with him he was always friendlier than friendly. I view him as a back-slapper sort of guy who forgets you the second he departs.

When I first was conscious of Bobby, he was already out of his parents’ house, and a member of the Coast Guard. Now, when Bobby was in the Coast Guard, I really had no idea what the Coast Guard was. I think I confused in my mind with the Merchant Marine. And I still don’t really understand what the Merchant Marine did. I had a more distant cousin on my mother’s side who lived in California but spent most of his time on Merchant Marine ships. I am sure it was an interesting life, but I have no clue as to what was in it.

So, Bobby was in the Coast Guard and he was stationed in Hawaii, I think for years, leaving Millie and her husband Jules alone with their dog Trumpet, a large boxer. I was a big fan of Trumpet, and I think Trumpet liked me, and when I was in the 6th grade, Trumpet had puppies. Well, Trumpet didn’t have puppies; Trumpet was male. But the puppies were apparently related to Trumpet, and we were given (or maybe we bought) one of them, whom I named Mugs, a name now that embarrasses me for its lack of glamour. I was so excited to have Mugs, but I think my mother hated Mugs, and didn’t want a dog at all. At any rate, after six months with us, Mugs got sick and died. Apparently, it was distemper, although he had had all of the normal shots (or so we were told). It was very sad, and it remained a mystery. Mugs was my last dog.

Aside: J. Fred Mugs was a chimpanzee who, at that time, was a regular co-host on NBC’s Today show, then in its first iteration under Dave Garroway. Dave Garroway had been a classmate and acquaintence of my mother at Washington U.  End of diversion.

Aunt Millie took me to my first baseball game. It was the Cardinals against the Cubs, I was already following both the Cardinals and the Browns, and I was very excited. Naturally, I brought my softball mitt, sure that I would catch a foul ball. I think I was six or seven years old. It was a very disappointing experience. The Cubs won, 6 to 1, but more than that, our seats were behind home plate, behind the net which assured me that no foul ball would come anywhere near me. My disappointment was increased because Bobby was at the game, too. He was with some friends, and they were sitting in the outfield bleacher seats, I think, and had wound up with a home run ball. Did Bobby offer it to me, his little cousin? Not on your life.

I don’t know how Millie spent her days. In my mind, she played cards and ate bon bons, but that may be all wrong. Uncle Jules was an on the road salesman, selling men’s suits. This seemed like a very boring way to spend your life, but it did mean that he always wore very handsome suits. I remember a shiny, gray suit that he told me was “shark skin”. Pretty ritzy, I thought. Jules seemed a nice enough guy. I know how he spent his time. He spent his time smoking cigars. The number of times I saw Jules without a cigar? I could count them on one hand.

Neither Jules (whose namecwas really Julius) nor Millie struck me as intellectual types. My guess is that is because they weren’t, but I can’t prove that one way or another.

One instance that I recall may help paint the picture. While my Uncle Al was a short, Mr. Magoo, Aunt Millie was of normal height, quite overweight (apparently she was very skinny as a young woman), bleached her hair a very light yellow (this is something that all the Hessel girls seemed to do, with the exception of my Aunt Irene, Jon Frey’s mother (you may know him….), who let her hair grow attractively gray). For some time, she drove a white Jaguar two seat sports car. You remember those? 90% hood? Whenever possible the top was down.

She drove one day to the Famous Barr department store in Clayton, but could not find a parking spot on the Famous lot. So when a nice young man offered to park her car for her as soon as a spot opened up, she was very appreciative and gave him both the keys and the car. I mean, she really gave him the keys and the car, because neither was anywhere to be seen when she left the store. Luckily, a few days later, the car was found abandoned not far away, I think undamaged.

Aunt Millie died young, in her 60s from cancer, leaving Jules alone for, I don’t know, maybe 20 or more years. We would see him, his nice suits, and his cigars rarely. He moved from their Richmond Heights duplex on Clayton Road, near Big Bend, to a new apartment development off Delmar west of McKnight, closer to our house, but I think he really ceased to be a family presence. I thought he must have been very lonely.

As to Bobby, he got married and divorced and married and divorced and I think married and divorced again. I only knew his first wife, Barbara, and not very well. A year or two ago, I tried to track her down, and discovered that she was living, with her husband, down the street from our friend Judy in Creve Coeur. But she was having serious health problems and I wasn’t able to see her. She and Bobby had two daughters. About them, I know little.

Bobby, I think, went through a number of jobs, winding up selling cars at Lou Fusz Chevrolet, a major St. Louis County dealer. When my father died, I called him up to tell him. He was very appreciative of my call, and told me he would see me at the funeral. He did not show up at the funeral, however, and never gave any sympathy to my mother, my sister, or me. In fact, we never heard from him again. Ever.

But in 1997, my sister passed away at age 49. She had become fairly prominent in the St. Louis business community (that is another story) and her death was well reported locally. Bobby again was MIA and may or may not have known. When we were at the St. Louis airport,  coming home after the funeral and shiva, I thought I saw Bobby at the airport. Looked just like him, although I hadn’t seen him in 20 years or so. I thought about approaching him, but did not. He, to me, was only part of history.