Deciding to be a Bachaelor

I wrote about living alone earlier, but the decision to remain unmarried began fairly early in my life.  Naturally, it started with someone I admire.

Uncle Bud at Niagara Falls, 1959

He introduced himself as my Uncle Bud, but in truth we weren't related.  He was a good friend and business associate of my grandfather Marion.  The two of them worked together at Norwalk Truckline in Norwalk, Ohio.  I was about six years old when I met him, and found him to be a very affable man.

Uncle Bud drove a convertible with power windows, and of all things, a telephone in it.  This was in the late 1950s, so you could get a phone in your car but it was essentially a ship-to-shore radio.  You had to wait for an open line (calls weren't private; anyone with a car phone could listen in), then you called the mobile operator and gave her the number you wanted.  After that it worked like a regular phone.

We didn't have a convertible at home, although we used to.  My parents' first car was a convertible, and my father was a rag top man at heart.  We didn't have a telephone in the car, either, and our car didn't have air conditioning and didn't have power windows, including the vent windows.

When I asked my mother about this, she replied that Bud didn't have a wife, so he could afford all those things.  I asked Uncle Bud if he was a bachelor, and he confirmed he was.  When I asked him why he didn't have a wife, he prevaricated neatly.  The truth was that Bud was something of a rake-hell, and would sleep with certain morally flexible women out of wedlock.  Remember, this is the 1950s.

So I determined I'd be a bachelor too, and have a sharp convertible with a telephone in it.  And that was that.

My folks were somewhat disappointed with my chosen career.  Well, my mother was, anyway.  My father didn't care, one way or the other.  Eventually my Uncle Bud got married, quite late in life.