My Uncle Fuzzy was a dreamer and a schemer. His name was Lee, but he had always been Uncle Fuzzy to practically everybody who knew him. The problem with his schemes was that they weren't good ones, and he wasn't very good at them, but still he tried, and when one failed he just went on to the next. If nothing else, he was persistent. Uncle Fuzzy worked full time in a foundry. I never knew what he did there, I just know he always came home covered from head to toe in filth. After work in the evenings and on weekends he would be hard at work on one get rich quick scheme or another.

He worked quite a while making plastic resin grapes at home and building lamps out of them. He didn't make enough money to even cover his expenses, and that failed completely when the fad died out. He worked for a while on making an electric device that would make worms come up out of the ground so fishermen wouldn't have to dig for them. Surprisingly, that failed as well. He then worked for a while re-filling table candles for restaurants. That failed. The list went on and on and on, and that was just the ones I knew about.

Uncle Fuzzy's most prized possession was a 1950 Mercury coupe. It was restorable, but not restored. It stayed in an old shed near the back of his lot, and he kept it covered with a tarp. I had never heard it run, and I wasn't too sure it even would. Fact of the matter, I had never even seen it completely uncovered or out of the shed. It was one of Uncle Fuzzy's many "one of these days" projects. The thing was that he could have probably had it in pristine condition if he didn't spend all his time and money on get-rich-quick schemes.

When I got out of high school, I moved out of the area. The next time I heard anything about Uncle Fuzzy was several years later, when I was contacted to come to the reading of his will. I knew Uncle Fuzzy had never had much, and that there would probably be nothing of value come out of it, but since I was in the will, I went to the reading.

I thought about it a lot on the drive to the reading of the will. Fact is, I almost turned back at one point, thinking that there would probably be nothing of value, and even if there was, it would probably go to one of my cousins. Still, I was curious, so I kept driving. Besides, I figured that if Uncle Fuzzy thought enough of me to put me in his will, the least I could do was show up. I arrived at the lawyer's office a little early, and spent some time reminiscing with my cousins. Eventually, the lawyer called us in.

As I had figured, Uncle Fuzzy didn't leave much. His schemes had taken their toll, and he was almost a pauper. Still, there was enough small stuff that the reading of the will took quite a while. Eventually, the lawyer got around to me. I figured by that time that there would certainly be nothing of value left, but I had forgotten about one item. His last remaining possession was the Mercury, and he had willed it to me.......(cont)