In his earlier life, Uncle Fletcher was a worker on the railroad gang. He was wasn't any different than 100,000 other workers who did the same thing for the same company. He wielded a hammer or toed the rails with another tool to straighten the ties. Or perhaps he was a water boy or had some other half-wit, yet necessary, job.
Sure, he knew everyone in the world and the ages of their direct loved ones. Knew their habits and kept notes in his head of all those things. He collected watch fobs, keys and other assorted things (we'd probably call them "trash", but he thought they were important.) He wasn't dumb; in his much earlier life it is said he was a teacher. Despite his questionable geography and algebra skills, he, like Sade, was adept at people skills more than anything else.
Near the end of Series #1 (in the very least, the last year of that series) Uncle Fletcher changes a bit from being the goofy Uncle of Sade to what he thinks is the Super Uncle of Sade. In the process he over-emphasizes everything he says and puts more importance on his own actions than he did before. The whole bit with Mis' Keller's approaching wedding to Harry Feedburn is played out to us in nearly real-time (that part of the series has the most surviving recordings and most have very good to excellent sound to boot.) So we can see the transformation of Fletcher on a close-up basis.
During this time, it is apparent that people often asked him to do large favors. He is diligent and trustworthy and does them all, despite the fact that he goofy and a bit cocky. At any rate, the free time he has is used to this advantage as he regularly fills in for others at their various slowpoke jobs around town (he fills in at a gas station most everyday, at the ticket window of the train depot, as a milk man and other things.) Are these things worthy of him being praised in the way he seems to think of himself? I say no.
So what happened that we're missing? You'd think that he rescued a half-wit baby from drowning or saved several people from burning to death. Or did Uncle Fletcher just turn a corner one day and decide that he's more important than he really is? Or did old age take him down that road?
Something to ponder.
You raise some interesting points I had never given much thought to before. I had considered Uncle Fletcher's whims as the result of being a free spirit with a lot of life experience and time on his hands. (Maybe you've noticed this phenomenon: when you visit an elderly relative who lies alone, he or she will put yo to work on, what strikes you as, trivial chores. Those silly little jobs have grown into serious problems (in their minds) because they have had time to think about them, with nothing really important to distract their stewing.) Uncle Fletcher may hae a lot of acquaintances, but he essentially lives in a world of his own. In that idyllic little world, the irritations he helps to solve have ballooned to giant proportions, because he has nothing to remind him that his worrying has inflated them.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Uncle Fletcher's "zeppelins" do remind us that our own attempts at meddling might be so much wrestling with Mylar (to continue the balloon idea). How many times has our ego blown circumstances out of proportion? Those who love Uncle Fletcher are willing to put up with his meddling, possibly because they, too, take pleasure in seeing him happy. And the listener is also buoyed by his buoyant perspective.