Uncle Jack, my dad's younger brother, one of two, would often ask me to help him out with certain chores and projects, typically weekend things at the family cottage out on Lake Ariel.
The cottage was just that, a cottage, meaning it wasn't built for year round use.Windows had to be shuttered with plywood panels, plumbing had to be drained to avoid freezing and bursting. The lone toilet would get one last flush, then be filled with a gallon of anti-freeze. The boat and canoe had to be dragged from the water and stored beneath the cottage's porch, itself then boarded shut.
It was a day's work. It was fun. It was also an education.
Jack wasn't preachy. Quite the contrary. He was, however, a great storyteller, like his father.
Jack had his own kids, then two sons, but at that point they weren't really old enough to be climbing ladders and such, or doing any genuine heavy lifting. Besides, Jack was my godfather and I tend to think he felt some obligation to spend a little time with me on occasion. It was fine by me.
Jack was a cool guy.
Not that my father wasn't cool. He was my father, and I loved him dearly, but father's can't play the cool role and function effectively as the male lead in the family drama, or comedy, or farce, as can be the case.
Jack was also teacher. During those autumn cottage close-downs, I learned things, two of which never left me, and when I really look at those two ideas, they were both huge factors in the path my life has wandered.
We can all them the Two Rules of Uncle Jack:
1) - Never stay in a job you don't like. No matter how much you think you might want any particular job, if you get it and find you really don't like it, move on. Jack had done this countless times and it served him very well; he made a good living and amply provided for his family, and he loved going to work each day. He died owning several of his own businesses, all small, but all concerns he thoroughly loved operating.
2) - There's no such thing as a free lunch. The origins of the "Free Lunch" can be found in politics. Back in the "olden days," the "Free Lunch" was typically provided at a saloon, wherein those sliding that plate of food before you were, in truth, persuading you to vote for their candidate. Free lunch + free beer = your vote. Jack cautioned to always remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch.And there isn't.
Cynical? I suppose. Negative? Perhaps. True? Very much so.
Little in life is without a price tag, regardless of what guise that price tag may take, or even when it might appear. It's really no more than physics insisting that for every action there is a reaction.
I read today of a gathering tempest in a teapot over a bagel. A bagel whose retail value is placed at a $1.30. I guess you could say it's a gathering tempest in a coffee cup, since it revolves around a doughnut shop, free coffee, and a police officer.
A lousy cup of free coffee and a lightly buttered bagel could lead, and let's be honest here, to who knows where. Given the climate within this county's politics and government at present, Uncle Jack's admonition on the free lunch seems to have the potential to cast a very long shadow.
The free lunch will cost you somewhere somehow.
The coffee may have been free, the bagel's true cost has yet to be determined.
