The Banana Pudding Bandit Strikes Again

My Uncle Cecil is the older man with glasses on the back row.  The people around him are his family.  He and my Aunt Gloria raised three boys whom I love dearly.  Barry - far right back row is a year older than I am.  Jerry -squatting is the oldest, Rob -far back left is the baby.  They lived in Florida too and so they were my only local extended family.  I loved my Uncle Cecil...he was a great storyteller.  Most people thought he was a B.S. artist....but he was not...he was an awesome storyteller.  He taught Air Conditioning and Refrigeration at the area Trade School.  He wrote poetry.  He hunted, fished, watched roller derbies and wrestling on tv.  He was a man's man....yet I adored him.  Several years ago when I took a writing class at Auburn during the summer I penned a little ditty about this wonderful man. 

Uncle Cecil

The smell of ‘nana pudding met me at the door

I knew my uncle would be there when I opened the front door.

There he’d sit just smiling, grinning from ear to ear

He lived in Lake Park but pudding always brought him here.

“Your mama’s quite a woman girl. She makes this pudding right.”

And he’d always show up at our door on banana pudding night.

We were just a small group – momma, daddy, me.

Uncle Cecil was a pudding lover and seconds there’d never be.

“Do you call him Momma? Is that how he always knows?”

She’d laugh and say, “no darling, he just has a banana pudding nose.”

“Can’t Aunt Gloria make it? Teach her and you will see.”

“He’ll eat pudding at his house and leave some seconds for me.”

Gloria never mastered my mother’s heavenly dish.

Seconds always went to Cecil – I never had my wish.

My momma made a pudding for my uncle’s funeral last year.

We all ate just one portion…and I think the reason’s clear.

Happy Monday to all!  I hope you enjoyed my small recollection of my childhood!  Do you have someone special in your life who has touched you? Blog about them...I'd love to get to know your family too!