While the head of the house was stationed on an overseas tour, Uncle John came up to Jacksonville, North Carolina in a “Drive Away” car. He picked up D.J. and they headed up the east coast where he delivered the vehicle and picked up another one that was scheduled to be sent down to Florida.
After loading up the rest of the family in Jacksonville, we headed for the southern highway. We didn’t get very far when the muffler fell off. It turned out that the owner of the car had been stationed overseas and the muffler was welded onto the car.
This being Sunday, the streets of Jacksonville were rolled up and there were no repair shops open, Uncle John’s solution was to get under there and tie it back on with a clothesline.
Again we set off to see the sights along our happy adventure trail to sunny Florida.
It was dark when I took my turn in the driver’s seat. Uncle John had barely closed his eyes when I noticed sparks flashing on the highway in the rearview mirror. I pulled off the road and woke Uncle John who again went under the car for a repair.
We were lucky that a Highway Patrolman saw us at the edge of the road and stopped to offer assistance. With the aid of patrol car headlights, Uncle John was able to retie the stretched clothesline and get us back on our merry way.
GERALYN’S STITCHES
One of her favorite TV programs, when Geralyn was in the first grade, was the series titled, “The Flying Nun”. Imagination was a key element in our home and Geralyn proceeded to use it when she jumped off the living room desk in Jacksonville.
She did not fly as her heroine, Sally Fields, had always done but crash-landed on the floor and received stitches instead of an aviatrix medal just before our Florida trip.
When it was time for the stitches to be removed in the palm tree haven, Uncle John, being a Vietnam medic, answered the clinic call.
DUYN’S BROKEN COLLARBONE
Playing with a foot paddle toy car brought Duyn to a painful fall and he suffered a broken collar bone. For the rest of the summer, he wore a soft shoulder brace and could not swim with the other splashing Furgasons. He sat up on a plastic raft and was towed around in the neighborhood pool.
D.J. MEETS CORAL
Uncle John had a chance to practice his Emergency Room skills when D.J. found an enjoyable swim turned into an unfortunate collision with a sharp outcrop of coral. His knee injury sent Uncle John searching for a butterfly bandage for his bleeding nephew. The untimely cut caused D.J. to be confined to dry land in the safe area of his favorite neighborhood pool.
DUION AND BURNED FOOT
A camping trip seemed like a good idea. And it was until we parked and began climbing out of the car. Barefoot Duion stepped out onto hot coals that a previous camper had not drenched out.
Duion’s first flying lesson came about quite by accident. Floridians are familiar with Parasailing by towing a parachute behind a motorboat going at a high rate of speed on a waterway.
Uncle John’s version of the sport was a little different. He planned on tethering his parachute to the bumper of his vehicle and driving around the “Pepsi Field” in order to gain enough speed to give his harnessed nephews a memorable flight.
He took D.J. and Duion to the field one fine morning and when the wind did not cooperate they decided to call it a day. While Duion was helping place the parachute back into the vehicle, an unexpected gust of wind came along and he found himself lifted up into the air.
Without the benefit of a harness that was lying on the ground, he heard Uncle John’s order, “Hold on!”
By the time D.J. and Uncle John managed to stop the tether from raising Duion farther into the sky, he had reached the level of the tops of area telephone poles.
His flying adventure would enter into the “Uncle John” Legend Book. There were many more to come in the future years. Fortunately for all of us, they all had happy endings.
LITTLE BOY TURNING BLUE
His mother warned me, “He will cry until he turns blue when you change his diaper. He passes out and then starts breathing again.”
Surely I thought, this beautiful, sweet nephew could not have a temper that bad. Wrong….
That little boy turned blue quite often!
“UNCLE JOHN! UNCLE JOHN!”
We were going on a trip to Busch Gardens and Uncle John instructed the chatting Furgasons. “We need to stay calm and quiet. When you want to talk to me, please do it in a soft, very low voice. I need to concentrate on driving.”
All four children nodded their heads and understood they were not to disturb the adult conversations in the front seat.
I am not sure how long the quiet voices tried to get the attention of the three of us front-seat adults, but Uncle John heard his name being called quietly.
“What is it children?” he asked them gently.
He brought the car to a screeching halt when he was told, “The suitcases are falling off the back of the car.
It was an eventful summer and we Furgasons returned to Jacksonville with cuts and burns and traumas and broken bones healing to face another school year.
Perhaps time will prove the most dramatic of our family’s uncles to be Uncle John. His giving heart and sense of adventure at times entertained us and at times frightened us. Whether flying with him inside of an airplane, him flying you on a parasail, or watching him fly a plane into a Disney tree, stories about his sagas will be recounted with no need for embellishments when Grandparents sit down to retell family stories. ”And then there was the time that Uncle John taught us children about a game called “craps”…….” .