The Accidental Highway

© karen e. titus | all rights reserved

North Ridgeville, Ohio

Uncle Fred was Jan’s uncle, Karen’s great uncle. He was a successful, rich farmer – and incredibly cheap. It visibly pained him to lose out on any opportunity to make or save money. True, he’d give produce from his farm stand to family members, but only with great reluctance, and after several false starts. He’d pick up a pepper, say, and set it back down, and mumble about what Kroger (“the Kroger’s”) was charging for peppers, and gaze across his fields, repeating this circuit several times before inviting us to take the pepper.

He burnished his reputation in family lore when he made a show of giving Karen a free pumpkin – which, on closer inspection later, turned out to be rotten. He’s probably tossing in his grave right now, wishing he could have charged us a photo fee for shooting his bucket.