I was trying to Google my paternal grandmother just a bit ago and I came across this: Google Search: "Fred Kjer" That is my Uncle Fred. I learned something new about Uncle Fred tonight. This I will share with you in a bit.
Uncle Fred is my dad's youngest brother. He is 14 years younger than my dad. So by the time my dad was dropping out of planes behind enemy lines during WWII, Uncle Fed was barely 4 or 5 years old. By the time Dad got home a decorated war hero, Fred was like 6 or 7. I have this great picture of my very black haired dad when he was around 15 standing there holding up an old bike with a grinning blonde baby boy sitting on the handle bars obviously enjoying the ride of his life. That baby was my Uncle Fred.
My first real memory of Uncle Fred was when he came to visit when I was around 6. I just remember him being a tall, handsome, happy fellow who looked nothing like my father. They told me he was Dad's brother, that he was Grandpa and Grandma Kjer's son (I had met them the summer before in Nebraska). Still he looked nothing like any of these people, Dad included. He grinned a lot. He had Dad's dimples. A huge infectious grin with those twinkling blue eyes and those deep, deep dimples.
At the time I met Fred (and Grandpa and Grandma for that matter) I had no idea that Grandpa Kjer was not my dad's real father. I had no concept at that time about people dying and people remarrying and having more children by the second spouse. It never crossed my mind that Dad and Fred did not share the same last name. It never crossed my mind that Dad's parents should also share his last name either. After all, Mom's parents didn't have the same last name as us. Why should Dad's?
Our last name was/is McDonald. Dad was born of my Grandmother' marriage to a hard drinking Irishman named William Edward McDonald. She had 3 children by Mr. McDonald who swore that the baby in his wife's womb was his long awaited son. William never got to find out if the gestating offspring was his son as he died 2 months short of said offspring's birth in 1923. W.E. McDonald died of liver failure, the result of drinking himself todeath, literally.
He had black eyes, black hair and was dark in only the way the black Irish are dark (think Pierce Brosnan). As my father was growing up, his sisters told stories to my father of how their dad loved to sing and play the piano. Grandma was a Beneke. Her family was from Germany. She had blue eyes and black hair, something not very common amoung Arian stock. She also had dazzeling deep dimples.
When my father was around 5 years old, Grandma married John Kjer, a tall blonde man of Norwegian decent. They had 4 more children, Uncle Fred being the last, all of them very blonde and very Nordic looking. All of them with deep, deep dimples.
The next memory I have of Uncle Fred was when I was around 10. We were down in Texas visiting Mom's family and making a side trip to Corpus Christi to see Dad's older sister Virginia. Fred showed up there in a brand new 1964 candy apple red Corvette Sting Ray convertable. Us kids were seriously impressed with Uncle Fred that day. I had my first and only ride ever in a Corvette that day. I have a picture of Fred sitting in the car grinning with those dimples.
I honestly don't remember if I ever saw Fred again after that day. I saw him in pictures, but never in the flesh that I can recall. In fact, after that day in Corpus Christi, I don't think I have seen a single one of Dad's relatives again.
That was like our very last real family vacation to anywhere with my dad. My dad was slowly getting ready to disappear from our lives for almost forever back then. Between trying to work himself to death and never being home because of work, he also managed to have 3 major heart attacks and then lose his job to his employer going bankrupt, to his moving to San Jose to find work, to his finally finding a cushy, fat ass paying job with RMK (the Haliburton of it's day), personal secretary included in Viet Nam, Dad was slowly slipping away from us. (he eventually married that personal secretary btw, but that's another long story)
That's where all the pictures of Uncle Fred came from. Dad went to visit him in Da Nang while he was stationed there flying missions. In one picture, my dad and Uncle Fred are standing there (grinning of course) in front of Uncle Fred's F-4 Phantom. My dad's notation on the back says "Fred and I in Da Nang in front of his F-4 Phantom (that's the only reason I know it's an F-4 Phantom btw). Those bombs on the wings were dropped that night in a raid over N. Viet Nam." Pictures from my dad always had cute little notes on the back like that one. I also have a picture of my dad standing in a little park in Saigon (I know it's a park in Saigon cause the back of the pictures says so). My dad let us know in his notations on the back that of picture that the little park was destroyed by a bomb 2 week later in the Tet offensive. Just as an additional aside here, I have a picture my dad took during some major battle in WWII of hundreds of paratroopers landing on the background with the inscription on the back saying "I took this one for General Ike". My dad was real big on that inscription on the back thing as you can see.
What I never knew about Uncle Fred until tonight was that he had shot down a MiG over North Viet Nam no more than a month or so after that picture with Dad was taken. I guess I thought he just dropped bombs. I never knew he engaged in "dog fights" in the air with the "enemy".
Uncle Fred was a lot of things, frankly he still is a lot of things, it's not like he rolled over and died when he retired from the Air Force. Uncle Fred is still doing track and field stuff. He holds the Nebraska State collage record for some track and field event (you can see I know nothing about track and field events). He was invited to represent the USA in the 1960 Olympics but declined to go as he did not want to break up his squad in the Air Force.
So that's the story of Uncle Fred. He's the only blood relative I can ever find anything about on the Internet. Course I am always looking for my dad's side of the family. It's like I am searching for long lost realatives or something. I never search for Mom's family cause, well, they are not lost. I know right where they all are. They're all down in Fucking Texas. Sometimes they even come up here and see me (God forbid I should go to Texas).
I wonder if Uncle Fred still has those twinkling blue eyes and deep, deep dimples?
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