by Ian Hart

Uncle Jimmy is old.

So old that he wears a rusty belt every day.

You can hear him echoing in the coal mines,

But you need a hearing aid just to hear him.

You can smell fresh pizza when he enters the room,

And can taste melting iron from the furnaces of the past.

Uncle Jimmy has fantastic stories to tell in the idle hours,

But he puts you to sleep when he tells ‘em.

In one tale, he talks about some black rocks,

Tore up the ground just to burn ‘em later.

In another, he tells of great electric beasts that roamed the streets.

He calls ‘em trolleys, and they rode ‘em like the Vikings rode their longships.

Uncle Jimmy is historic.

He’s been walking with a cane for years, decades,

Yet somehow, he outpaced the trolleys that don’t run anymore.

Uncle Jimmy wears driving gloves when he’s in a car,

So he doesn’t lose his grip on the wheel now-a-days.

Uncle Jimmy is an enigma,

Because, despite his soft-spoken voice and his slow walking cane,

He’s one of the most interesting people you know.

He was a storm chaser back in the day.

He hunted thunder, harnessed lightning,

And breathed life into the decrepit trolleys,

All so we didn’t have to walk.

Uncle Jimmy is nostalgic.

He’ll put you to sleep with his stories about the coal mines, the steel belts, and the electric trolleys.

But he’s family, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.