Right now, my kids are completely obsessed with a subset of family lore that we call “Uncle Dan Stories.” They beg for them. Every morning when we’re on our walk, at lunch while I load the dishwasher, at the dinner table – obsessed, I tell you.
Tell us about the time Uncle Dan ate the inchworm!
Uncle Dan stories revolve around my brother as a child, with all his quirks and foibles and getting-into-scrapes. They’re always funny, often slapstick, and I’m never entirely sure about the message that the kids are getting.
Tell us about when Uncle Dan got lost at Disney World! Tell us about when Uncle Dan got lost in the Boston Children’s Museum!
Uncle Dan Stories frequently star Grandad as a sort of antihero (Uncle Dan and the Lake Shark). Or they’re disgusting. (Uncle Dan and the Jalama Burger. Or Uncle Dan and the Can of Black Olives.)
Tell us about the time Uncle Dan threw up in the parking lot at Ponderosa!
Which Ponderosa? And which time?
Tell us about the time Uncle Dan jumped in the bathtub with his jammies on!
I patiently weave the Uncle Dan stories over and over again for them, and they can never get enough. There are favorites (Uncle Dan and the Inchworm and Uncle Dan and the Jammies in the Bathtub are the most requested) and I’ve managed to turn a couple into homeschool lessons, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself (Uncle Dan and the Merced River. Uncle Dan and Mario Cuomo.) I’d have turned off the spigot before now, but my secret is: I too enjoy Uncle Dan Stories, although I do resist telling Uncle Dan and the Jalama Burger at the dinner table.
(Before our last FaceTime date, I warned Dan: “The kids are going to have a lot of questions for you.” He groaned, oh, great.)
But recently it occurred to me that in their obsession with Uncle Dan Stories, my kids are tapping into a well of family connection that goes so much deeper than the time Uncle Dan pushed Christopher off the boat or the time Uncle Dan threw up at Ponderosa. (There’s a whole series of Uncle Dan Stories that involve throwing up, beware.)
We live far from our family. My parents are in upstate New York, as is my grandmother. Steve’s mom and my best friend are in Florida. I have aunts and uncles in New York and California, and the star of the Uncle Dan Stories is in Colorado. The kids aren’t growing up in a herd of cousins like I did (although I was the eldest by several years, so always a bit apart from the rest of them) and they’re not spending their weeks looking forward to Sunday night dinners at their grandmother’s table, surrounded by a pile of relatives. (NO MORE CHIPS, it’s golumpki tonight!) I’m not saying that our way is wrong or bad. In a way, there’s plenty to be said for living as a contained little unit, functional unto ourselves – although we’re not above calling in Nana and Grandad for major childcare needs – and close-knit of our own accord.
But I still want them to feel a connection to their extended family, to recognize a strain that reaches beyond our immediate family of four. I’d been thinking of Uncle Dan Stories as a funny diversion (well, they are a funny diversion) but in this weird and uncertain age, in which we’re all living almost completely to ourselves, it occurred to me that Uncle Dan Stories are also a connection to the rest of their family, and this is something we all need right now.
We only see Uncle Dan and Aunt Danielle once a year, and that’s if we’re lucky. (We were supposed to have a week together this summer, and now that’s not going to happen, but we have big plans to make it up to each other at the holidays. I hope it works out.) But thanks to Facebook and FaceTime, we’re still close. And my most cherished hope is that my kids stay close when they’re adults – so I will always tell an Uncle Dan Story. I hope that under all the giggles they recognize Uncle Dan Stories – and all of our family stories; there are some gems starring Nana too, like Nana and the Citronella Cake – as the glue that binds us together, and that they understand that these stories are for them because they are a part of the family. And I hope they grow up with their own hilarious family stories about one another, and that someday their own kiddos beg for uncle and aunt stories.
Next I think I’m going to have to tell them about how Uncle Dan used to be afraid of corn.
As always, Dan, thanks for the laughs.
How are you staying connected to far-flung family in this age of quarantine?
covered in flour 
This made me really want to hear an Uncle Dan story haha
😀 Once upon a time, Mommy and Uncle Dan and Nana and Grandad were sleeping over at the Green Camp. (That’s the one we call Aunt Maria’s Camp now.) It was nighttime and Nana gave Uncle Dan a bath and put him in his NICE CLEAN FLUFFLY YELLOW FOOTIE PAJAMAS. Grandad was in the living room hitting a beach ball all around and getting Uncle Dan all riled up even though it was his bedtime! What could Grandad be thinking! Uncle Dan was chasing the beach ball all over the living room and then it bounced into the BATHTUB and floated there and Uncle Dan ran into the bathroom and jumped in the bathtub with his NICE CLEAN FLUFFY YELLOW FOOTIE PAJAMAS on! And he was all wet in his JAMMIES! OMGoodness! What! NANA WAS SO MADDDDDDDDDDD! (It’s possible that you had to be there, but my kids absolutely cackle at this one…)
Hahaha. Thank you for sharing! Uncle Dan sounds like a laugh 🙂
He’s a hoot!
I love this so much. My dad used to tell stories about his aunts and uncles, most of whom I’ve only met once, and we’d soak them up. Long live the Uncle Dan stories! (I have an Uncle Dan, too – my dad’s brother. The best.)
Uncle Dans are the very best uncles!