Uncle Jim's Magic

                                                Uncle Jim's Magic 
 
    Uncle Jim was magic. 

    Our little family felt hard times. We ate a lot of lima beans. We ate a lot of peanut butter. We kept our upper duplex cold to save money on fuel oil. Dad had a job, but I often heard him say, "The hours are too long and the money's too short." He sat morosely in his worn chair listening to Edward R. Murrow broadcast more bad news.
 
    When Uncle Jim and his family drove up from Iowa everything changed. Dad smiled. He moved and talked faster.
 
    Dad asked Uncle Jim, "Did you get good mileage on your new Buick?" 

    Dad laughed when Uncle Jim said, "So good I had to stop in Rochester and let a little out."
 
    Everyone seemed to like my Uncle Jim. He smelled like cherries and burning autumn leaves and a little like cough medicine. I could always earn fifteen cents for shining his already shiny shoes. Uncle Jim shook my hand, as if I were a man, when I was only ten years old. Uncle Jim could make a quarter disappear right out of thin air, then pull it out of my ear. I begged him to show me how to do that, but he said it was magic. And it was.
 
    We always found the money or the food to have what Mom called "special meals" when Uncle Jim came to visit. Oh, we were a happier and better family when Uncle Jim came.
 
    Somehow our family made it through the hard times and life got better. Uncle Jim always made it to graduations, from high school, college, and law school. He always brought a gift that just seemed so right: a wrist watch, a portable typewriter, a genuine leather brief case.
 
    Years later, when Uncle Jim was so very ill, I visited him in the hospital with my own little family. The nurse let my family stay for only five minutes, but I stayed with Uncle Jim a little longer. I took his frail hand and held it in mine and reminded him how he shook my hand when I was only ten. He smiled and a tear snuck out of the corner of his eye. Smelling the clean, medicinal smells of his hospital room, I told Uncle Jim that I always liked that cherry smell he had. I told him how he made our family feel better when times were hard. I am so glad that I got to tell him I love him.
 
    Then I said, "Uncle Jim, I always wondered how you made that quarter disappear then pulled it out of my ear." 

    "It was magic, wasn't it?"
 
    "It was. Will you show me how to do it?"
 
    Uncle Jim showed me how to do the trick with the quarter, and the magic died.