I don’t have a specific story to tell about my Uncle Emile, but I can share what I will always remember about him. His tall stature. His smile. That glint in his eye, and that chuckle, when he was teasing you or making light of something. The way he stood by his woman. In fact the way he wouldn’t hesitate to explain and defend something that Auntie Irene was saying that might have raised a few eyebrows.  His faith. His love of newspapers and the news. I vaguely remember some sort of device (before the internet), that he used to track ..was it the weather, or livestock prices??

I believe it was he who once told me this joke: A man standing behind a woman in a pew, noticed her skirt was stuck between her buttocks. He did her a favour and pulled it out. She turned around, glared at him and asked what the heck he was doing. “Oh, I’m sorry,”  he said as he did her another favour and returned the skirt back to her buttocks