The Inspirational Family Clown

This is written in response to the question: Who inspires you?

My family inspires me. Oh, there have been figures throughout history and more recent public figures that have provided inspiration, but none are as inspiring to me as my own family. I suppose that I know that family members live more similar lives to me. They aren’t wealthy or famous. They are ordinary like me and I can better believe that “if they can do it then so can I”.

Past family members inspire me every time I learn something new about their lives. They had no fame or fortune either. They had difficult lives but they faced those difficulties with tenacity and grace. This serves as an inspiration to me.

I have many current family members who also inspire me. My parents inspire me. My husband can inspire me. My children inspire me. Even my little three-year-old granddaughter provides inspiration. Her ability to love without seeing race, religion, social standing … makes me long to do the same. Her adventurousness, sweetness, and empathy provide an example that we could all stand to aspire to. Many family members have inspired me but I want to talk about my mom’s brother, Uncle Olen.

Uncle Olen told me that when he first met my husband, my husband told him that he had him figured out. Uncle Olen asked what he meant and my husband told him that he was the family clown. Uncle Olen laughed and told him that he took that as a compliment. My husband told him that it was meant as one.

If a room is quiet, Uncle Olen isn’t in it; he is the loudest person in the room! He loves to talk and he loves to make folks laugh. He is constantly coming up with hare-brained stories.

One story involves Mom making moonshine, which is something that past family members were quite familiar with. There was a little cave/sinkhole at the back of my parents’ property. Uncle Olen swore that my mom had a still in this little hideaway where she was keeping on the family tradition of making moonshine. Sometimes when he called from Ohio, he would say that the price of potatoes had gone up and Mom must have caused a scarcity buying them all up to make “tater shine”. The next time, the price of apples would be up so Mom must be running a batch of apple shine.

Uncle Olen decided that Mom needed to make me her enforcer to protect her and made sure that no one started horning in on her shine territory! Once at a family reunion, he bought a stoneware jug and gave it to Mom as a souvenir of her moonshining days. He also bought his grandson’s paintball gun and we posed for a photo of the master shiner, her enforcer, and Uncle Olen.


                                                        
                                       The Master Shiner, the Enforcer and Uncle Olen Nolen



Another story involves the weather. We have several Persian carpets so I am the captain of a “magic flying” carpet. Uncle Olen and Aunt Lola live in Ohio. Mom and I live in Tennessee, and Aunt Fanny lives in Georgia. Whenever the weather gets hinky, Uncle Olen says that I have picked Mom and my aunts up on my magic carpet and we are up in the stratosphere making the weather crazy. So when the weather is crazy, we get a call from Uncle Olen telling me to keep my carpet grounded!

Uncle Olen likes to tell the story that Granny told him that he wasn’t born like his siblings had been born. Supposedly, she told him that once just before he arrived, a bad storm had come and there was flooding. The flooding had washed away the outhouse. Granny went outside and saw a little turd floating down the rain-swollen creek and she scooped it up. That little turd turned out to be Uncle Olen! Now, Mom says that Granny would never tell a story like that but I don’t know. She was telling it to Uncle Olen and that is just the kind of funny story that he would enjoy hearing!

Uncle Olen tells another story about my granddaughter. Since she was due to be born very close to the Marine Corps birthday, he swears that she is going to grow up to be the first female Commandant of the Marine Corps. She was actually born a few days after the Marine Corps birthday, but Uncle Olen says that November 10th is her official birthday. He says that his little jarhead Commandant can just celebrate two birthdays!


                                               
                                           Uncle Olen and his little jarhead Commandant



Uncle Olen jokes with everyone and if you are around him long and haven’t at least cracked a smile, someone might need to check your pulse!

So, Uncle Olen’s desire to spread joy and laughter is inspiring in and of itself; but his ability to do this is pretty incredible to me. Here is a bit of backstory to explain what I mean:

My Grandma Rachel died when Uncle Olen was only three. My, then nine-year-old, mom was the oldest of Grandma and Grandpa’s children. Grandpa Boyd tried to keep the family together but he just could not do it. Uncle Olen and his brothers, Billy and Ronnie, ended up in a children’s home. Their sisters Lola and Fanny also ended up in a home. Mom and Uncle Johnnie went to live with Uncle Bug and Aunt Alta in Ohio.


                                           
                         At the home; Olen, in front with eyes covered, and his siblings



Uncle Olen has told me that he didn’t care for studying and he often was in trouble at the home. He got into more than one fight with the other boys. The children’s home had a basketball court though and he would spend lots of time on the court shooting hoops. I imagine that this gave him less time to get into trouble. He grew to love basketball.

Somehow, the coach of the basketball team of a neighboring school saw Uncle Olen and thought that he had the potential to be a good player. He talked with Olen and asked him if he would like to attend the school he coached at and play ball. He told Olen that he could arrange for it to happen but Olen would have to promise to keep his grades up and stay out of trouble. Uncle Olen loved basketball and was happy to make the promise.

Uncle Olen has told me that this basketball coach took him under his wing and says that if had not been for this coach, he would have probably never taken his studies seriously and would have probably gotten into more and more trouble. He may have even ended up a dropout and/or in jail. This coach seemed to have a big positive impact on Uncle Olen.

Soon, Uncle Olen’s life was filled with basketball. He spent enough time on his studies to keep that part of the bargain with his coach, but most of his efforts went into basketball…and probably some went into staying out of trouble. He would attend practices, camps, tournaments… He became very, very good; so good that he was offered a full scholarship to the University of Kentucky to play basketball for them after high school graduation.

Sometime before he graduated though, one of his friends who had been in the military was killed in Vietnam. A Marine recruiter came to campus encouraging the seniors to enlist after graduation. Uncle Olen was told that they would send him to officers training school after boot camp if he enlisted.

Uncle Olen had a decision to make and he had decided to enlist. My dad told him that if he enlisted, he would be sent to Nam and not officers training school but Uncle Olen wanted to do something to honor his friend’s sacrifice. He enlisted.

Uncle Olen went through boot camp at Camp Lejeune. There was no officers training afterward; he was sent to Vietnam where he took part in a war and its horrors.


                                                    


I have a memory from my childhood. My family is returning home from somewhere, probably from visiting family. We drive up and see an olive green sedan parked in front of our house. I don’t know how Mom and Dad reacted, but I remember a sense of dread. We got out of the car and someone gets out of the sedan and approaches us.

Looking back, I am certain that Mom was expecting to hear that her brother Olen had been killed in Vietnam. The news was not good but Uncle Olen was alive. He had been hit by mortar shrapnel and was seriously injured. The doctors had wanted to amputate his leg but Uncle Olen refused to let them. The doctors told him that he would have more pain down the road by trying to keep his leg but Uncle Olen adamantly refused amputation. He was just barely an adult and could not imagine the rest of his life without both of his legs.

Uncle Olen was eventually able to come home. He came home with two legs but he would not be able to play basketball like he had dreamed of doing. He would likely not even be able to scrimmage in pickup games.

Over the years, Uncle Olen has experienced much pain due to his injuries from the war. Those injuries were not only from mortar shrapnel but from exposure to Agent Orange. Those injuries also included the shattering of dreams.

I have asked Uncle Olen if he has ever felt bitter about being misled by the recruiters, about being shipped directly to Vietnam instead of attending officers training school. I have asked him if he has ever regretted his decision to enlist rather than playing basketball for the The University of Kentucky, still his favorite team.

Uncle Olen told me that he had thought about that over the years. He says that he figures that if he had attended UK, he would have probably ended up becoming an accountant. He would have probably stayed somewhere in Eastern Kentucky or somewhere in the Cincinnati/Dayton area of Ohio. He probably would have had a desk job and not traveled in more than a few states.

Uncle Olen has said that the Vietnam war was hell. He had seen and done many horrible things that he wished that he had never seen nor had to do, but being in the Marines allowed him to travel to many different places in the world. Being in the military allowed him to see many people of different races with different cultures, different religions… He has said that if he had not joined the Marines, he would have never been able to experience that.

So, Uncle Olen has told me that he reckons that if he had it to do all over again, he would have still enlisted in the Marines. That is the main reason Uncle Olen is so inspirational to me. He has been able to find the positive in a sea of negative. His experiences have helped him to see that as different as people are, they are more similar than different. Suffering and loss have not made him bitter, they have made him better. His decision to join the Marines may have deprived him of the joy he experienced while playing basketball, but he is able to see the joys that he hasn’t been deprived of and to concentrate on those. He has done all of this while having an imaginative sense of humor and he has used it to spread the joy of laughter to others. I find that to be truly inspiring!