Uncle Jeff

Etiquette and heart

Uncle Jeff and I

Roadie day one was eight and a half hours in the cab of Uncle Jeff’s white Dodge Ram 1500. Day two was around ten hours. Because of traffic, that same drive back on our third leg took us twelve. And the final jaunt home was again a little longer: eight and half hours in the truck. 

We were nearing the end of an epically massive road trip, driving across the Upper Peninsula through on-and-off October drizzle, listening to Watermelon Moonshine by Lainey Wilson on the radio for the thousandth time, but I wasn’t even mad and still somehow love that song, the floor of the truck covered in crinkled Nutter Butter wrappers (mine), Doritos bags (his), David Sunflower seeds (mine), those oily brown Reese’s peanut butter cup papers that look like they’re made for baking thin muffins (his), a large Starbucks cup that was used as a spitoon (mine), and one million Diet Mountain Dew bottles (both of ours). 

After seven days together, twenty-ish shared meals, his first Chipotle, my first Waffle House, three nights sleeping in the same room, one country music festival, two proper Finnish butt-a**-naked saunas, and nearly forty hours in the car, Uncle Jeff and I still get along like peas and carrots. 

Not only that, I was a bit bummed it came to an end and could have easily saddled up for another week and another forty hours. 

I’m hoping that someday “Jeff and Mitch” will have the same connotation as “Bert and Ernie” or “Joey and Chandler.” 

He’s that freaking awesome and easy to hang out with, has become somebody I consider a true friend, someone I now frequently confide in, and overall, I’m finding reconnecting with my uncles that amazing and life-changingly important to me.

That trip with Uncle Jeff was just the kind of quality time I’d been hoping for: one-on-one, small talk, comfortable silence, and stories. 

And everyone readily admits that Uncle Jeff is all heart and impossible not to love. 

But, I’m finding that he’s a bit hard to write about.