Uncle Al’s Knife

I found it in a box in my parents’ house. We were clearing the house out. The box had no label. Inside were old keys, a flashlight, and a roll of electrical tape. The Swiss Army knife lay at the bottom.

The case was worn. Someone had scratched “AL” into it. The blades were sharp. Someone had sharpened them often.

It was Uncle Al’s. Al was my father’s father’s brother. His given name was Adam. He and his brother Pooley owned a junkyard in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. After they “retired” they still lived at the junkyard. In winter they kept a trailer in New Port Richey, Florida. In college I drove over one day on spring break to see them. We grilled hamburgers outside the trailer. I think he had the knife in his pocket then.

Twice a year Al and Pooley drove up to Massachusetts to fish with my father, two brothers and me on the Cape. At first they drove together. Pooley died around 1980. After that Al drove alone from Pennsylvania in an old Dodge Dart. A bar ran across the back seat and his clothes hung from it. I looked at them and thought he lived in the car. His hands were stiff with arthritis. He said he drove with two fingers.

We fished from my father’s 16-foot Starcraft. We caught bluefish and striped bass. The bluefish ran hard and the drag sang. The striped bass pulled heavy and steady. In a boat that size you felt every fish through the hull. At night they told stories.

I was young and I did not listen well. I watched the rods and the water and waited for the next fish. Al and Pooley talked and I heard some of it. Now I wish I had heard all of it. Maybe he told more than I remember. Maybe he told everything and I was somewhere else.

My father listened. He read a eulogy at Al’s memorial service, and the stories were in it.

Al got his chauffeur’s license in 1914, at 16. In 1918 he drove to Cape Cod on dirt roads. The trip took 26 hours. He had 12 flat tires and fixed every one himself, on the road. He raced cars. In World War I the government wanted race car drivers to train as pilots. Al volunteered, and so did a friend. The doctors found a hernia. They told him to have it fixed and they would take him. Al said no way. He never had it fixed. His friend was killed.

My father wrote that Al could talk to fish. Al caught the most and the largest, and it upset Pooley. In his last years Al could not stand to cast. He sat in one of the rear-facing seats and told my father where to cast, then took the rod to reel in. A moment later you heard “Fish on.” Everyone else got skunked. I think he had the knife in his pocket then too.

My father also read that he had lost an uncle who treated him like a son. He treated Al like a father. Al died at 93.

I never met my grandfather. His name was Frank Snyder. He was Al’s brother, and Pooley’s, and August’s.

Next: Frank Snyder, December 1939