He had lost another wife

He is my favorite uncle, really the only one I got to know, get close to and feel for when things were good or bad in his life. Every summer since I was born up until the time I was about 25, I spent most of the summer in upstate at the bungalow colony. Now bungalow colonies were pretty famous up there in the catskills, generally referred to as the 'borscht era' when many of them were popping up all over the mountainous regions of New York, Pennsylvania and maybe even New Jersey. But our colony was the best, still standing today, but very delapitated.

Anyway, uncle W (Talik in Ukranian), (name witheld for privacy) was alone again after a second wife had slipped through his fingers and the marriage was over. He just could not get a handle on getting it right, I mean I knew he loved my aunt, she knew he did too, but other woman could not be a part of a marriage, any marriage. It just does not work. He loved Diamond, it was Talik's way to unwind, get crazy, get melancholy and be 'real'. "Solitary Man" only became his favorite when he realized his life was not cut out to include marriage even though it included a woman or two.

I learned through his tears, his laughter and his stubborn need to be what others could not accept him as, and the lessons were always affirmed by the music this man played as loudly as he could from radios in his cars, his boats, his bar and his own mind. I never pitied him and only appeased him by listening to his ramblings as if he were stark-raving mad. Only later in life did I realize he is just a tortured soul, as Diamond might be, and that love is one of the most difficult things to hold onto. When you hold on too tight and love way too many, the most precious slip away just from the suffocation and realization of not being number one which obviously is so important.

The song below was recorded live in 1971 . . .