They call my uncle The Dutch, but no one knows where the nickname came from, not even my uncle who tends to remember things from his youth.
If he remembers, then he’s not telling me.
It has nothing to do with marijuana, or so I tell myself. I don’t like imagining him puff-puff-passing a joint.
Maybe he smokes by himself, keeping an old stash of weed in the freezer. Maybe he has a one-hitter that someone gave him in college, some mentor upper class man who handed it down at the end of the semester. I doubt it, though maybe I should give him some credit.
And he’s never been to the Netherlands. He’s never left the state of Kansas for longer than a weekend. Vegas. I’m sure he got drunk and did some things he’s ashamed of. He drinks too much around strangers. This I’ve observed.
My uncle lives alone.
His email isn’t thedutch@aol.com or anything like that. I send everything to his work account: pswarthmore@kansas.gov. His signature is a quote from Pilgrim’s Progress.
My uncle works for the state. He’s got four employees and a secretary, Mrs. Bethel. Her husband works on cars.
I like to think that my uncle earned the nickname, that he was jumping rope in first grade, and when the other boys teased him he deflected it with his humor, which was over their heads.
“Nice double-dutch,” they said.
“It’s just dutch,” he said back. “I’ve only got the one rope.”
But he’s not clever, my uncle–and neither are first graders. He’s completely inoffensive.
I’ve asked my mom, but she doesn’t really know her brother. None of us do.
He’s an average man with a killer nickname, and I’m not sure how that happens.
