In August of 1991, my family piled into our old, late-1970s model Ford Grand Torino to drive to California to visit some relatives.

The car was one of my dad’s specials. He never liked to pay more than $300 for a car, and we considered that vehicle to be new to our family. Our previous car was a puke green 1968 Rambler Rebel that I was embarrassed to be seen in.

With a family of five with three boys ranging in age from 19 to 13, the ride was long and cramped, and my dad kept referring to us as the Griswolds. The only air conditioning was rolling down the windows, and that August air coming in was not cool at all.

But it was the best vacation ever.

My great-uncle Tom Leeming lived in Yuba City, California, and he drove over to my aunt Betty Jacenich’s house in Marysville to greet us. We were stiff and tired as we got out of the car, but we were very excited to see a bunch of relatives on my dad’s side of the family.

Tommy, as we called him because that’s what Grandma Jean called him, walked out the front door. He did not even say hello. Instead, he looked at the Grand Torino, which was a faded yellow with rust spots busting through the paint around the tires. The black vinal on the roof was peeling off.

“You came down here,” Tommy said, “in THAT?”

That two-week vacation marked the only time I ever visited Disney Land, and we saw three Major League Baseball games. That included watching Rod Carew’s induction into the California Angles Hall of Fame. We also watched the Giants pummel the Dodgers in Candlestick Park, and we got to watch the Braves play the Giants during the year of their first World Series run.

What I remember most, though, was visiting with Tommy, my grandma’s younger brother who loved the finer things in life.

Tommy, who served in the Navy during the Korean War, retired very young five years before our visit. He lived and worked in New York City for the final 30 years of his career before retiring to be close to family in Yuba City.

Following Tommy’s his death at 95 last September, some of my cousins started counting the ticket stubs he saved from New York. An avid fan of symphony and opera, Tommy attend, on average, two shows per week for much of his time in the Big Apple.

A single man, Tommy also traveled the world and took tons of photos to document it all.

He was always well-dressed and proper. He drank a gin martini every night at 5, and he would read the label of a wine bottle before he would pour. By contrast, our house usually had a box of wine in the fridge.

I am pretty sure my family members who stayed in Butte could not have told the difference if you poured them the most expensive glass of wine or poured them a glass of Boone’s. The color of the wine did not make much of a difference, either.

It mattered to Tommy.

One night on our trip, we went to Tommy’s house for dinner. When it came time to select the wine, my dad said something that shocked Tommy more than when he first saw that rusty, old Grand Torino.

“Only a barbarian,” Tomme said loudly, “would drink white wine with steak.” Then, he burst into laughter — at my dad, what he had just said and our reaction. It was a rare combination of a joke and the undeniable truth.

It was right then that I learned that you are supposed to drink white wine with white meat and red wine with red meat. If it wasn’t for Tommy, I probably would have gone my entire life without knowing that unwritten rule of fine dining.

Tommy was a little brother of my Grandma Jean. She had an older brother, Bill, a sister, Betty, and younger brothers, Donald, Jack, Pete and Tommy.

Butte’s Strike of 1959 sent Betty and Pete to California and Jack and Donald to Las Vagas. My Grandma and Big Billy stayed in Butte, but the siblings always stayed close. Their many sons, daughters and grandchildren are still close.

Whenever we get together, we hug, laugh, laugh and laugh some more. Then, when it is time to leave, we shed a few tears.

Many of us gathered last week in Butte as we said goodbye to Tommy, the last of the William and Lillian Leemings from Buffalo Street.

My great-uncle Bill, whom we called “Big Billy,” was a quiet, unassuming man who just loved to be around family while watching a ballgame.

Donald, who spent most of his time visiting his home state chasing rainbow trout at Georgetown Lake, was even more quiet than Bill. I do not remember ever meeting his wife, Rusty.

Betty reminded me so much of my Grandma Jean. If there was anything better than having someone like Grandma Jean around, it was having two. Betty also introduced me to the Sunkist float.

Betty’s husband, Emil, died long before I was born, but she stayed in Marysville to raise her two sons.

Pete, who visited Butte often with his wife Charlotte, was a mailman in Cupertino, California, which isn’t far from San Francisco. To be a contrarian, he cheered for the Dodgers and Rams.

Pete was the easiest of my grandma’s brothers to make laugh. I remember him laughing so much. He passed away last July.

Jack was the coolest man I ever met — or will ever meet — though his five sons give him a run for his money. Especially Joe.

For some reason, Jack’s wife, Margaret Mary (Crowley), aka “Muggs,” really seemed to like me. Jack was the keno manager at Caesars Palace for many years, and he always made sure that Butte Rats got the white-glove treatment in Vegas.

Tommy was the funniest. He was also the toughest for us to figure out.

In the late 1970s, my older brother and I heard we had an uncle from New York City coming to visit us. I had not yet learned that the Yankees were evil, and my brother and I could not wait to talk about baseball and Yankee Stadium with Tommy.

We were shocked — and I’m still kind of shocked — to learn that Tommy did not care a lick about baseball. He did not care about any sports. He thought they were silly.

Not only did he never go to Yankee Stadium, he did not know a thing about the Yankees. I don’t think he even heard of Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio.

He did not even know who O.J. Simpson was until the white Bronco chase interrupted Tommy’s television program in June of 1994. He should have served on the jury.

Tommy, though, was just as puzzled with us. One time he told us that he could not understand how we can watch a pregame show, where they tell us what is going to happen in a game. Then, we watch the game for three hours before watching a two-hour postgame show as the “experts” told us what happened in the game we just watched.

He was right. It makes no sense. Then we laughed like crazy.

The beauty of Tommy was that, even though we had absolutely nothing in common with him, there was nobody we would rather visit with. Nobody made us laugh more.

He even had us laughing at his funeral as Father Baretta talked about one of Tommy’s last doctor visits before he passed. The doctor asked Tommy how he managed to live 95 years without ever getting married.

“I was lucky, I guess,” Tommy answered.

There were a couple of things that we did have in common with Tommy, though. We all valued our family connections so much. We loved spending time with that family.

That bond was, and will always be, a special one.

Tommy also loved Butte. He did not want to live here, but he talked about how important it was for him to come home when he passed away. To me, that says as much about Tommy as it does his beloved Mining City

So, as of last week, Tommy is so fittingly laid to rest at the Holy Cross Cemetery with his parents and some of his siblings — none of whom cared what color wine they drank with steak.

The barbarians.

— Bill Foley, who prefers Mountain Dew with his steaks, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.