Uncle Orrin Figured Big

My uncle Orrin was an amazing character.  He died a few years before my brother John and I were born, but he lived on in stories told about him and letters written by him.  And he wrote a regular column for the local newspaper that his co-workers turned into a book published posthumously.  I know for sure we'd have hit it off, which makes his untimely passing from polio (before the Salk vaccine was widely available) painful all these many decades later.  It's almost spooky how a deceased relative - never met in person - can exercise an outsized impact on a life - mine.