I’m listening to Bob Dylan’s latest CD “Christmas In My Heart” and I can only hope it will inspire the very prolific rapper Lil Wayne to record his salute to the Hebrew holidays “Sukkos In Your Tuchas”.      

Now that I’ve gotten that joke out of the way, I must discuss my Uncle Jack who recently turned 80.  My uncle, known in most major American cities as Jack Weinstock, is cooler than anyone you’ve ever known or will ever meet. He’s been a high performance race driver, ridden motorcycles at terrifying speeds, captained his very own extremely large boat, been the head clown in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, is a world-class cook and has married and divorced two absolutely stunning redheads named Sharon.

He’s been millions of dollars in the black followed by even more millions in the red several times over and then finally in his 60s introduced washable silk clothing to the US and made so much money even he can’t blow it. Now he drives the most beautiful Bentley convertible you’ve ever seen and is married to a gorgeous redhead named Sandy (thus breaking out of his Sharon rut but still loyally sticking with the letter S) and lives like the king he is in a magnificent apartment in Aventura, Florida.

Prior to that he resided in Connecticut where he had a 10 foot statue of the Blues Brothers in his living room, kitchen mats that said “Hi, I’m Mat”, a complete set of life-size fiberglass farm animals in his backyard, a robotic dog that greeted visitors at the door and a garage full of never-opened gadgets that included Microphone In A Briefcase and The Solar Waffle Iron.

He’s had two bypass operations, multiple angioplasties, several stents, a pacemaker and was pinned under a runaway Mercedes that came through the wall of a Manhattan restaurant where he was drinking cheap wine and suffered what we were told was a fatal or at the very least massively destructive brain injury. Three weeks later he was better than new tossing candy to fellow motorists while dressed as the Easter Bunny complete with ears. The man can not be killed – he’s like a Jewish cockroach. Spitting in Father Time’s face, he has retained all his hair and has grown shockingly handsomer as he’s aged – so he’s either a premium specialty cheese or a goddamn freak.

When he turned 80 I knew something special was coming and I wasn’t disappointed.  He left high school at 17 to join the Army and so he missed his senior prom.  He remedied that a couple weeks ago when he threw himself his Senior Senior Prom for 140 friends and family members…most in 1950’s clothing who danced to an 11 piece band, drank malts and many other drinks that had considerably more vodka in them.  The entire event was highlighted by a hip-hop dance routine set to 50 Cent’s throbbing “In Da Club” showcasing my uncle as lead dancer (of course!) and star (what else?) complete with four back-up dancers.

It’s time for all of you to meet my Uncle Jack in person and feel instantly diminished so please click on this linkhttp://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/communities/story/1343296.html and read the article and watch the video.  Seriously, don’t you wish he was your uncle?

Per usual, what does any of this have to do with Indian blankets?  Well, pretty much zero, but I can’t tell you how much it thrills me when my uncle looks at me with wonder in his orbs and says,”I just can’t get over that you’re the world authority on something.” So I’m feeling pretty good about myself because the coolest guy in the world thinks I’m cool. Maybe I’m the second coolest guy in the world? No, number one is my Uncle Jack and then Jack Nicholson. That drops me to number three at best but now I’m thinking there’s Muhammad Ali, Sean Connery, DeNiro, Pacino, Tiger Woods before the car accident, etc., etc. OK, obviously I’m well out of the Top Ten, but try having Johnny Depp identify Indian blankets…can NOT do it to save his life!

So look and learn, Johnny.  I was going to feature some Beacon blankets this month, but that was before uber-collector Gary Diamond sent me photos of his latest monumental find – a missing link in the evolution of Racine trade blankets.

What we see in thousands of photos from the late 1800s are Indian women wearing Victorian shawls – a great many of them Racines. Racine shawls of this era were predominantly brown or grey and always featured framed patterns – unpatterned centers framed by a decorative border on all four sides. A typical example is seen in the first photo below. Over time Racine produced well over a hundred different border designs – stars, leaves, paisleys and floral patterns generally.  Eventually that frame became more Indian-looking in composition and then Racine transitioned into multi-color full-blown Indian patterns. Racine Indian blankets are usually banded patterns – bands of design separated by bands of solid color.