Uncle Carl and Uncle Herman

Uncle Carl was always a little on the anxious side. To say he was easy to spook would be an over simplification. In short the man was very apprehensive about going upstairs at McClendon Manor, which is what we named the big house at the corner of West Green and Betsy Streets in Iva. The house had been known as The Gailey Place after the original owner Preston Gailey.

One Friday after school I got just a little bit devilish and decided to have a little fun at Uncle Carl’s Expense. I had a rubber mask that looked like an ugly old man. I took this mask and stuffed it with rags and paper and then took some clothes and stuffed them with other clothes and newspaper.

Then I got some spooky blood shot eyeballs I had from a Halloween decoration and put them in the eye sockets of the mask. I took some brown work gloves and puffed them up with toilet paper to make hands.

Then I put screw eyes in the ceiling over the bed and ran invisible fishing line from one of the hands through the screw eyes to the door and connected it to the door so that when the door was opened the hand would pop up and make the creature move. I named the creature “Uncle Herman.”


I had Uncle Herman laying on the bed in the room we called the yellow bedroom which is where Carl would spend Friday nights of most weeks. Carl would work during the week for a faucet company and would work Friday afternoons and Saturdays at the store. On Friday nights he would stay in the yellow bedroom. So, Uncle Herman was waiting on Carl to get home from work.

When I finished creating Uncle Herman I went across the hall to my bedroom and listened to some music through my headphones in anticipation of Carl’s arrival. I heard Carl coming up the stairs. I was as quiet as I could be because I knew that Carl was scared to death to be upstairs by himself. If he knew I was upstairs he would not be quite so afraid.

I eased across my room and peeked though the door to watch Carl as he and Uncle Herman met. Carl opened the door and Uncle Herman’s hand shot up. This worked better than I had planned. Uncle Herman even rolled towards Carl a little bit as his hand shot up. The next thing I know Carl has thrown his suitcase to the bottom of the stairs and run down the stairs. He was pulling at the seat of his pants yelling “Bruce, Bruce.” He had pooped his pants.

The funniest part is that when he threw his suitcase from the top of the stairs somehow he managed to beat it to the bottom of the stairs.