By Steve Landwehr
Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives" we tell some of the stories of North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.
SALEM - At one end of the spectrum you might find Uncle Vanya, the Anton Chekhov character who despairs of his tedious life in rural Russia.
At the other end perhaps was Uncle Buck (in the movie of the same name), the rough-around-the edges-heart-of-gold babysitter who warns his niece's suitor he could be the victim of a ritual killing if he "gnaws" on his charge's face again in public.
Somewhere in between is Charles J. Friedline, Uncle Brud, who was renowned for both his sense of humor and his utter dependability.
Friedline, who died of congestive heart failure in his Salem home Wednesday, Nov. 4, got his moniker from his younger sister, Dorothy, who had trouble pronouncing the word, "brother," as a kid.
She and her two children, Chuck and Cheryl, have a little difficulty describing just what a rock Uncle Brud was, although you'll see Chuck finally crystallizes it.
But first they try to describe the go-to-guy with examples.
If you had a flat tire on a bike or a car, you called Uncle Brud, who was an experienced mechanic.
If you were out skating in the winter and got cold feet, he'd warm them between his hands, and he was a sound financial adviser, as well.
The lifelong bachelor was always good for a laugh.
"I wanted to stay single to keep all the girls happy," he'd joke, then ask one of the gals, "So, are you happy or are you married?"
He lost his hair young in life, and the kids used to give him combs as gag gifts.
"I'll never part with it," he'd quip.
But he could be serious if he had to be.
He tried to enlist in the Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor before the United States entered World War II but was rejected for, of all reasons, bad teeth.
The Army was apparently less choosy, but before he joined his mother asked him why he was doing it.
"You never even fight," she said.
"Nobody ever attacked me before," Friedline replied.
He took part in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day, and watched his lieutenant take a fatal bullet as soon as the landing craft door dropped open.
Many of his comrades were soon wounded or killed, but like many of those old vets, Friedline didn't talk about that part of his life much.
Pen pals
There were happier moments while he was stationed in England. Gregarious and fun loving, he struck up acquaintances with the families of a number of his British compatriots, corresponding with them regularly. And dependably.
Stars and Stripes, the Armed Forces newspaper, once cited him as the enlisted man with the most mail. Long after the war, he was keeping touch with those old pals, even sending flowers when their folks died.
He held a wide variety of jobs after the war besides being a mechanic. He worked as an upholsterer, did some catering and spent many years as a cashier at race tracks here and in Florida.
"He couldn't do arithmetic ¬— unless you put dollar signs in front of the numbers," Chuck said.
He held one other job that earned him a brief moment of immortality on the silver screen.
He was working as a security guard for Covert Armored Car Services in Lynn in 1954 when Universal Pictures came to Boston to shoot "Six Bridges to Cross," the Tony Curtis movie based on the 1950 Brinks robbery.
The studio used Covert as a stand-in for Brinks and Friedline got a minor role. He held on to that week's pay envelope as a souvenir.
By the way, he was paid $1.52 an hour as a security guard.
As a young man he was an athlete whose only interest was baseball and he was good enough to play semipro. He gave up that pursuit first to help support his family and later fight a war.
Chuck remembers Uncle Brud hauling a bunch of kids to the batting cages in Saugus, where Friedline would step into the cage with the fastest pitching machine and casually flick every ball for a hit.
But for a die-hard fan of the game, he may be one of the few members of Red Sox Nation who never viewed Fenway Park as Mecca.
"They're overpaid," he used to say of professional athletes, and, "They need to learn to catch the ball with two hands.
Friedline would just as soon watch a pick-up game at Salem Willows as those, "sissies," stepping up to the plate with batting gloves and body armor protection.
During the Depression, Friedline and his father — who sometimes earned as little as 25 cents a week back then — used to hike over to the railroad tracks to scavenge pieces of coal that fell off the ore cars, taking the fuel home to heat the house.
Like many of the descendants of the era, the lessons of frugality learned as a child guided Friedline the rest of his life.
Sister Dorothy recalled that a company began producing what everyone called Depression ice cream. It was so poor a substitute for the real treat Dorothy couldn't eat it, but her brother didn't seem to mind.
"He couldn't see spending his hard-earned money on something like that," Dorothy said.
Dearly departed
Friedline lived with his sister for many years and all but adopted his niece and nephew.
"I had a wonderful father and a wonderful mother, and then I had Uncle Brud," Cheryl said.
When Chuck was 13, he came down with pneumonia and his parents sent him down to Florida to stay with Uncle Brud during winter school vacation, hoping heat and sunshine would speed his recovery.
Friedline took his nephew on the rounds of all the spring training camps, and Chuck convinced his folks to let him stay an additional week.
For several years, Dorothy and her brother saw the same doctor. When Dorothy showed up for her most recent appointment one of the nurses expressed her condolences, saying her brother was, "Such a perfect gentleman."
When the doc came in, he used the very same words, and told Dorothy whenever he saw her brother's name on the appointment list, it gave him a little lift.
"We miss him so much," Cheryl said. He was a constant, he just shared.
Chuck finally nails what it is he's going to miss about Uncle Brud, the guy who was always there for everyone.
"If you look at life as a tightrope, I always had a net," he said. "Now I don't have a net."
Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660, or by e-mail at slandwehr@salemnews.com.
