People You Know

The other night, I ate too much spicy food, couldn't sleep, and laid awake thinking about people I know who are in prison. That's right -- the slammer.

Erin and I had a conversation over coffee the next morning about the murderers who've passed through my life. At first, she didn't believe me, but I was able to quickly locate details on the web regarding several cases from my childhood involving people I knew offing other people. Some using household appliances.

This also got me to thinking about my Great Uncle Emmett. We all thought Uncle Emmett lived in some pretty tough neighborhoods as a youth. We'd sit around at holidays, listening in rapt attention to his tales of people with nicknames like Bug Legs and Roughhead, occasionally accomplices in various punishable offenses. We'd laugh and laugh as he'd move from one story about a guy in a knife fight to another story about a guy getting buried alive. Then we'd stand up, stretch, and go for more ham loaf.

At the time, I thought Uncle Emmett either grew up across the street from a leaky chemical plant or he was off his freaking rocker. But now that I think about it, his stories don't seem so far fetched. In my own relatively safe suburban upbringing, I knew several felons. In one case, a guy we knew in high school, and occasionally scuffled with, ended up murdering his own mother. Take that, Bug Legs.

I don't know what any of this really means or what it says about my upbringing. But I do feel better knowing that I'll have my own supply of stories to build on at holidays when I'm 80, just after we've polished off our traditional holiday chicken fingers and a slice of pie.