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The Stupendous Mr. Stanley

Ciara M. Blecka

    I always called my uncle The Stupendous Mr. Stanley. He was indeed a stupendous man. And not because he lived a life of complete and total freedom and adventure. He never worried about anything or let anyone tell him how to live his life. He never thought about money or hesitated to venture off into the blue yonder with nothing but a nickel in his pocket and a pleasant tune on his lips. But, no, this was not why he was the Stupendous Mr. Stanley.
    My Uncle Ellis was an unfortunate man, in truth. His clothes were worn down to rags and he often lived off of dented cans of beans and crusts of old bread. He often rode the rails on his way to towns that promised glory but more often delivered nothing but disappointment. Back then, they used to spray the hobos with water hoses to discourage them. One winter, my Uncle Ellis nearly froze to death after they hosed him down. The fact that he survived was not why he was stupendous.
    He would always walk in the door whistling, and declare, 'I am an adventurer.' My father didn't think he was. My father thought he was a vagabond. Maybe that was because my mother was always patching the holes in his trousers and darning his socks.
    When my father bought a brand new Model A, Uncle Ellis liked to toodle around town in it romancing all the beautiful women in our podunk little town. He was always the life of the party: a glittering symbol of every woman's greatest fantasy in his brand new suit with his pearly white smile. He even managed to snag himself the belle of the ball: Birgitte Berven, the petite blonde flapper with the bob haircut and the tiny waist that always went to the outdoor movies on Saturday nights and to church early Sunday morning to sing in the choir. She was a wan thing, though, with a delicate constitution, and my Uncle Ellis drug her across the country on all his escapades, promising her adventure and riches, but all she really became was just a migrant worker. The fact that she stayed with him was not why he was stupendous.
    Uncle Ellis was always so strapped for cash that he would often straggle back in after several months in order to have his clothes washed, have a bath, and eat a decent meal.
    'You're absolutely ragged!' my mother would fuss, but Uncle Ellis would just grin and shrug with that boyish way of his. He was only really a boy, after all. And what sense do young boys have?
    Finally, my father found a job suited to my uncle. There was a circus that had set up camp in town and it was run by a Mr. Nicolaas Brinkhuis. It was called Brinkhuis's Big Top and it was a spectacular sparkling kaleidoscopic wonder. But Mr. Brinkhuis was a surly, burly bear of a man. My father said, 'This job is perfect for you, Ellis. Brinkhuis can never keep an employee and you can never keep an employer. You'll have work for a couple of weeks and get your paycheck and then you can go on your way.'
    My Uncle Ellis became a famous magician in Brinkhuis's Big Top and lo and behold, twenty years later, he was still working for old Brinkhuis the Bear. This is not why he was stupendous.
    My uncle was the Stupendous Mr. Stanley because after all the wandering and meandering in his life, he was able to create a stable home life for his family and bring in a regular paycheck. He married Miss Birgitte Berven and they had seven children-all filled with a kind of wanderlust of their own. He had a kind of magic not just when he was performing in the circus, but that turned his life from rags and ruin to sweet success. That was why my uncle was the Stupendous Mr. Stanley.

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