[AtLast]

When I was 10, my favorite Uncle visited us during one summer. He was very handy and creative and just fun to do things with. My friends and me had this "car club" - we built "boxcar" type go carts from scrape metal, wood, old wheels.. anything we could get our hands on!

There was a neighborhood race we all were madly trying to build a cart that would win. My uncle helped me with mine and my best friend. He used some of the old hardwood flooring from our house that had been torn out because we had some termite work done for the frame and a bunch of other stuff we had around. It had an actual steering wheel (from an old '38 Ford he found at a junk yard). It was something! He waxed the floor boards with hardwood floor wax and everything!

My best friend and I won the race!!! Damn near got killed while doing it because our "track" included a very steep hill we just flew down with nothing more than the old wood block kind of brakes and our sneakers. No thought of a helmut back then. But, we made it. We were convinced that my Uncle was the reason and we had never built such a cool go cart before- nothing like this one, ever!

The other kids and me gave my Uncle a handmade "honorary" car club membership card. It was the size of a regular business card and had "Uncle Dominick, Go-Cart Builder" on it. It said he was a lifetime member of the Strawberry Point Girls Go-Cart Club. He put it in his wallet.

I never saw him again as he went back to New Jersey and became ill but did live until I was 22. My Dad went to see him before he died and then for his funeral. When he returned, he took out the card and gave it to me. My Uncle had carried it in his wallet all that time. It was frayed, but could be read. The go-cart was passed down for years in my family and did finally wear out- but not after many years of great fun!