My dad had five brothers, all of whom made their way for the most part farming in the Mississippi Delta—cotton, soybeans, and so forth. Uncle Edgar, not the eldest brother but nevertheless the one carrying the old man's name, engaged in the most monetarily successful project, it seems to me. His hay fever had made farm work unbearable for him, so just after the war he bought himself an apartment hotel on Miami Beach, a purchase that made him a rich man, as well as the brother all of his siblings dreamed of visiting.

Actually, the thing I remember most vividly about Uncle Edgar was that he only had four fingers on his right hand. The little finger was missing, and I was fascinated to learn that it had been shot off in a hunting accident. I spent far too much time pondering what kind of perfect shot it would have taken to shoot off a guy's little finger, rather than contemplating how close my uncle had come to having been mortally injured somewhere more vital.

Maybe because of his brother Edgar's success in Miami Beach, or perhaps because of his high school year spent near Naples, my dad decided to move us to Florida, and he chose the Orlando area. Why he wanted to operate a small chicken ranch I haven't the slightest idea, except that throughout his whole life he wanted to be his own boss, own his own business, and keep his own books.