Why I love my Uncle Bullion (Charles Davis).

He is in the back row on the left above and next to him is my father.

I heard today that my favorite uncle died. He died at the advance age of 97 years. I would say he had not only a long life but a good life too. While I did expect his passage I will miss him. I will miss his touch, the way he cocks his head when he talks to you, that forever smile that says ‘everything is going to be alright’ and that long lanky gait he had when he was younger, tackling those hills going up from Parry Town up to his house. I was secretly hoping to have one more chance to sit with him and hear from his own mouth some more of the family history. Now that will never happen and all that knowledge and family history died with him. I will miss the knowledge but I will miss him more!

From earlier conversations here is what I gather about his history. He was born in Lucky Hill on April 20, 1912 and started school there but finished up in Kingston where he was living with his sister, Sister Lou (Louise Davis). He started working in Kingston too, first as electrician then driving but with the end of WW II (1945) he gave up driving and was never behind the wheel of a car again. I never heard the full story of why. But what was surprising about his youth was that he was politically very active. To do this in a family that was so astutely Jehovah’s Witnesses would have taken some doing. But I have heard from other sources that as a youth he was very active in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP); that he traveled the island extensively canvassing votes and was very prominent in party gathering. He said however that he himself never voted.

In 1945 he dedicated himself to Jehovah and has been a ardent Witness ever since. As a young man he left Kingston and came to Ocho Rios (Kellington) where he married Violet. They set up residence in Parry Town where he has lived ever since. While there he became a tradesman; a skilled masonry, carpenter and builder in the Ocho Rios community. Together they had six children: Lillian, Rudley, Sonia, Robert, Sutcliff and Yann.

My uncle was not rich but I have never known him to ask for a dollar. He was always self supporting and a good provider for his family. But what he might have lacked in material wealth me more than made up for in kind thoughts, a happy disposition and a giving personality. I have never known him to be mean, have envy for anyone or curse at someone.

For me, he was the balancing act to my father’s anger. He was the one who could calm my father down from his fits of rage and get him to see reason and become rational again. I cannot tell you how many times I hoped for Uncle Bullion to stop by (as he often did on his way home from work or meetings). You know, those days when you got into too much trouble for your mother to handle and she gave you that ultimate warning ‘You just wait until your father comes home….’ Secretly I would then pray for my Uncle Bullion to show up. I know he was the only one who could reason with my father and get him to forget or at least bring the punishment down a notch. He was my savior many times. My mother, I think uses a similar tactic when she had a difficult confrontation with my father. You see Uncle Bullion and my father were both very close. He was my father sounding board and I know much of my father’s endeavors would not have happened if he did not have my uncle’s advice and support.

The first dollar (pound) I ever earned was from Uncle Bullion. I was home on vacation from high school and he had a masonry job in the kitchen area at Tower Isle hotel. Against my mothers strong objection he go my father to allow me to come and help him on that job. It was the first dollar I earned but more than that it shows how my uncle operates. My father undoubtedly was complaining of how lazy I was sitting home all day and doing nothing. He was probably bent out of shape agonizing about it and talked to Uncle Bullion about it. But Uncle Bullion saw it for what it was; that I was not particularly lazy but just a young man bored out of his whit’s and was really looking for something new to do.

That was my Uncle Bullion. He always seems to look beyond the obvious. He was a thinking man, my type of guy. He will always be special to me.

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