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Well,I will begin about Uncle Oscar...he was my dads uncle, the brother of my dads mother...now Uncle Oscar was one of 12 children(great grammie had about 20 or so pregnancies, some resulted in stillbirths, some in miscarriages, but 12 lived into adulhood)....and Uncle Oscar was the youngest, the baby of the family....there were 6 boys and 6 girls, just like in the movie 'Cheaper by the Dozen'...

Now all 6 boys served in WW1...they were a very patriotic family...I believe all the girls had husbands who also served in WW1..I know my grammies husband(my grandad) and all of his brothes served in WW1...so say what you will about their oddness, they did go to war, proudly served...

My grandmother and Uncle Oscar, and all the kids in the family were born in New Jersey, and spent a good deal of their lives there... When my grandmothers daughter(my Aunt Helen) married and moved to Cal...grammie went with...my dad went into the army, just before WW11, married mom and settled in Chicago...

But the rest of that whole family, stayed back east, some moved to Philadelphia, but for the most part, they all stayed in and around Frenchtown N.J., a small town of about only 2000 people where everyone knows everyone...

Now in this wacky family of mine, drinking was the biggest pastime of the boys, and of some of the girls...Uncle Oscar, was quite a big drinker...one time the boys were out, carousing around, and Uncle Oscar was sitting in the back of the car, in the Rumble Seat...

Being as he was loaded, and prone to thinking he was smarter than everyone when he was like that, he was standing up in the rumble seat, shouting directions at the driver of the car...the driver got angry, stepped on the gas, and all anyone remembers seeing was Uncle Oscar, being thrown head first out of the car, and flipping up in the air...when the dust cleared, on the road, Oscar was injured and had to be taken to the hospital...

He broke his hip, very badly...apparently he did not believe it was broken, and he tried to escape the hospital, by jumping out of a second floor window(He must have still been drunk)..Patients reported seeing a man fly past their window...(No one to this day, understands how Uncle Oscar dragged himself to the window, and threw himself out of it)...

Well, he hurt himself again, but surprisingly no greater injury than further injury to his hip...I guess, being so drunk, he was 'loose' when falling, and the alcohol dulled the pain...

Anyway, after a lengthy stay in the hospital, and cared for at home, by greatgrammie, he returned to normal health...tho for the rest of his life, his one hip was higher than the other and he walked with a limp...

But he never wanted Greatgrammie to know, that the reason he got thrown out of the car, was because he was drunk, and lost his balance when the car started up...so the boys all made up a story...I dont know what the story was, but they all thought greatgrammie bought into it...years later greatgrammie revealed that all along she knew Oscars injuries had something to do with his drinking...

Then as now, its very hard to fool your mothers...

More to come...