My mother’s brother, Harold, was one of the best looking men I had ever seen. He was tall, about 6 foot 8 inches, and lived in a nondescript furnished apartment in Toledo. There wasn’t a book in the house and the television had a thick layer of dust on it.

My mother showed me a photograph of him when he got out of the Air Force in 1968 so I would recognize him when I saw him. He looked the same that summer as he had in the photograph. There was not a wrinkle on his face, no crow feet, as if he had been preserved in formaldehyde.

He was a gracious man and we had lunch in a park. I was coming home to California after a failed job in Boston. It was at a time in my life when I didn’t care where I going as long as I was leaving Boston and the East Coast. California was not the end of the road for me. It was not a new beginning either. It was just a way-station in my life. I did not travel point to point in straight line in those days. I traveled like a corkscrew, as if I were a hippy. I was a college graduate—sure there was more to life than the day-to-day one-day-at-a-time.

Harold told me he was moving to Canada. He said he liked the idea of wilderness in the sense of silence. I believe he meant he was moving to a place that had no people. His cabin was going to be at the confluence of three rivers. It was going to be on the same latitude as Nome. If distance was not going to keep humans from his door winter weather surely would.

Over the years I sent him copies of my books as they came out. He sent a few letters, said he liked the books, but that was the extent of our communication with him. When he died in bed the copies of my books were still in their packages, that’s how the apartment manager knew to contact me.

He left me everything. It was just money. He was saving about $200 a month from his Air Force Retirement had one set of clothes in the closet. But he kept every letter I had ever sent and reread them. I know that because he folded and refolded and refolded the letters. Either I was the only one who wrote him or mine were the only letters he kept. I don’t know.

He died of cirrhosis of the liver and there was not so much as a bottle of beer in the refrigerator when he died. Butter, jam and six bottles of green olives stuffed with pimentos, yes; alcohol no. His pantry was stocked with pasta and peanut butter. There was no map of Canada when I cleaned out his apartment. When I checked with the Canadians, he had never bought any land. I’m guessing he didn’t want me visiting again. It wasn’t personal; he just didn’t like people.

Funny, I remember him still. Was impressed with his good looks. He will live as long as I am alive. It’s odd that a man who disliked people so much would be remembered for so long for what he was not.