Personal Pies

Sometimes the smallest gestures make the biggest impressions

- by KATHERINE POLCARI photograph by GREG DUPREE

MY GREAT-UNCLE James Whipple, known to our tight-knit community in Chattanooga as Uncle Jimmy, had a natural gift for making children feel at ease in his presence, likely because he himself was a kid at heart.

A lovable troublemaker, he's the one who taught me and my brother, Jonathon, how to cheat at cards. (If we can see your hand in any sort of reflective surface, we will take advantage.) He rarely called me by my name—only by his own moniker, GG for “Gorgeous Girl.” And most of all, he always relied on his boyish, lopsided grin (plus some good old-fashioned bribery) to get his way.