Saturday, December 7, 2024
My first memories of Uncle Nick were in the mid-60s when he used to drive up to our house in his old Pontiac. About half a dozen of us kids used to run alongside and jump on the running boards. He always hollered at us because he thought we might break them, but he had a big smile on his face when he got out of the car. Uncle Nick used to live on Bagdad Road just over the hill from our house. On the weekends we used to visit him and warm up on cold winter days around his pot belly wood stove.
Uncle Nick had a creative mind when he and Uncle Tony visited from Rochester. They used to sit around the kitchen table after breakfast and talk about the new technology and inventions coming along, comparing them to what they had growing up.
One instance I remember was when there was a heavy snow and Uncle Nick had about a quarter mile of unplowed road back to his house. He tied a 2”x 6” to his leg and scraped two-wheel tracks down the road so he could get his car out. His neighbor, our Uncle George, ran out of his house thinking Uncle Nick had broken his leg.
In later years, I remember a long conversation my wife and I had with him at a family reunion. I had always known Uncle Nick was an insightful man and was fascinated by his thoughts on energy and climate change. We will miss Uncle Nick. May he be with his family in heaven.
