For Uncle Eric

I admire the relationship between Andy and his brothers. There's five of them, Andy being the oldest, anytime these boys get together laughter ensues. The funny thing though, is they're usually laughing at the same ol' stories. The Kleinman wives (there's four of us now) know that when the boys start reminiscing, it's time for us to find something else, unless of course, we want to hear for the 936th time about Dusty's baby Crystal, or Curtis hitting a tire with a hammer (which backfired and hit him in the head), or Brian seeing how many acorns he could stick up his nose... on more than one occasion, or Andy chasing the chickens, or Eric having an epic battle with Ralphie (their dad) over lima beans... when he was four. I would say Eric (the youngest) has the most stories of all the boys, I guess that's what happens when you're the baby. We say all the time that Jax and Eric are kindred spirits. They're both giant beasts of boys, they both are obsessed with anything with an engine and both are serious daredevils. I love Eric to death, but to be honest, I'm a little scared about my boy turning out that way. I just don't know if my heart can handle him jumping motorcycles over suburbans... at the age of 16. But alas, we're already seeing signs of Eric-ness, among them a new favorite saying. It's a classic Eric line from the boys' childhood. Andy taught it to Jax and now he runs around saying it with enthusiasm. Please disregard me asking him about his shoes... he had just gotten new ones that day.

That's right, "I HAUL RUB!" Eric said it one day while he and his brothers were out riding bikes. He was pretty young, and the older boys had built dirt jumps to take their bikes on. Eric rode around on a little scooter and would go on the jump, but just scrape the top off as he went down the backside. The boys, annoyed that their little brother kept destroying their jumps, yelled, "Eric, what are you doing? You're ruining the jumps" to which he responded, "That's cuz I haul rub." And a Kleinman legend was born.