Uncle Jack...big and gregarious

Uncle Jack was about 6 years older than my mom so I don't think they were as close has my mom was to Billy. Uncle Jack's real name was Louis and Uncle Billy's name was John. A nurse or more likely a house keeper or babysitter couldn't keep their names straight so she gave them the names of Jack and Billy and it stuck.

Uncle Billy was sickly as a kid I think he had Saint Vitus dance and had to go through some therapy to get stronger. Uncle Jack introduced him to rowing and Billy excelled at the single sculls. I also remember a picture of Uncle Jack with football gear on and the old leather helmets. I'm not sure how he got the affiliation with rowing teams and football teams but he was obviously a man about town.

He once took us to Roosevelt Raceway to watch the trotters. I thought those horses would be hard to bet on because they all seem to be able to do the same pace. But it was still pretty exciting to watch the horses run.

Once he took me, my sister, and cousin Ronnie to Jahns ice cream parlor and we had a super duper for two which the four of us could not finish. I have never seen so much ice cream in one bowl more like a soup tureen than a bowl. It was huge.

I don't know how uncle Billy ended up in such a different type of career than Jack. Uncle Jack was definitely his father's son. Louis Honer Sr was very much an white collar worker at the Clyde lines where he was a purser.


Uncle Jack really had the need for the thrill of closing a deal and he worked primarily selling fencing, real estate and mortgages. I remember him saying that a good salesman could sell anything and he would send friends of his out on sales calls where they knew nothing a the product and still were able to close the deal when they were good salesman.

I remember when Uncle Jack mentioned that when he came back from World War II and the sailors landed in San Francisco. The first thing that they wanted wasn't liquor, they wanted real milk. After all those days at sea and drinking reconstituted milk they wanted the real thing.