Brad Childs
My note for Uncle Mike...
It is with a heavy heart today that I mourn for and celebrate the life of Mike French -- My “Uncle Mike”. My Mom, Carole June’s, only sibling. Son of my Grandpa Cecil and Grandma Pat.
Uncle Mike was one of the most important and influential men in my life. As a kid growing up and visiting St. Louis occasionally, he was awe-inspiring and more than a little scary! Truly larger than life.
As a young man, and at a time when I was having some troubles, he opened his home to me. And, as always, it was a very nice home! Replete with toys tied to the docks just out the back door. He employed me. He worked tirelessly to cure my incurable duck hook, always footing the greens fees and the bud light. He gave me an old motorcycle to ride. Generous doesn’t begin to explain what Mike and Bobby did for me that summer.
It was that summer I learned how to sell, thanks to Uncle Mike. It was that summer I became a singing bartender, very poorly, thanks to Uncle Mike. We became good buds. I provided an invaluable service, driving “one eyed” Uncle Mike home safely when necessary. Most of you probably met one-eyed Uncle Mike! I ate his delectable country cuisine, and I learned how to be a pretty damn good country cook at his side. My arm still hurts from him telling me to take the sausage gravy flour slurry bottle and “shake it till your arm falls off”. He was country, but he didn’t want lumpy gravy either!
He told me stories about my Dad I had never heard -- or heard altered versions of through the lens of my Mom and my sisters. He looked up to and loved my Dad, Dick, and my Dad loved Uncle Mike very much as well. Dick is ailing these days, and sends his love from New York City.
More than anything he believed in me and in my talent, and he made me confident. I returned to school after that summer on the lake, and performed the way I was capable of, thanks to Uncle Mike. He’s a big part of what made me the man I am today.
Our friendship continued when we both lived in Florida. We had an ill-fated summer tethered to a trampolene/trapeze contraption (one of those Uncle Mike investments!) at various seedy locations in the Sunshine State. I learned more about selling, watching Uncle Mike work a boiler room of yellow page salesmen with skill and power. We played a lot more golf and drank a lot more beer, and we got to do it with Carol and Clem which was beyond special.
Uncle Mike I love you, Bud. I love you so much for the way you lived. Imperfectly, with fortunes won and lost, but fearlessly. You took a bite out of the ass of life. You were usually the most charismatic guy in some very large rooms.
I love you for my amazing Aunt Bobette, the most loving and patient wife you could have ever dreamed of having. And I love you for my cousins Angie, Mikey and Nette Nette. I love you, my family, and my heart is there with you today.
I’m proud you got to see me hit drivers that sometimes faded in these later years, and that you got to see my boy’s sweet swing. Proud you got to know and to love my girls. And that you told me my Pot Roast was the best one you ever had.
Peace, Uncle Mike. I love you, Bud. Say Hi to Mom please.
Rich,Max,Phil
