UMD

My uncle just passed away from Cancer. He was too young to die, but he did lead quite an adventurous life. He has flown a helicopter since he was in the service when he was just 18. After getting out of the service, he used his flying abilities to do some really neat things. For a long time, he flew people around the United States, and then he flew helicopter tours. After that, he was offered an incredible opportunity to fly internationally. He flew in the Arab countries and took the rich people to their oil wells in places like Abudabi and this gave him not only great wealth but an opportunity to tour the world. He traveled all over the place and as I was growing up, I never got to know him because he was always off in a foreign country, but he would send the most incredible gifts from all over the world. As a child I received Indonesian jacks, beautiful lace material from Singapore, a book of Aesop's Fables from somewhere, Moroccos and real Spanish dancing dolls from Spain. I never realized how much these gifts meant to me as a child, but now in retrospect it was my only real connection with my uncle. He was the type of man who never really had kids of his own and really didn't relate to us real well, but I guess he must have thought a lot about us, because he was always sending us gifts or bringing us gifts, and so we must have ranked pretty high with him.