I bought a house last year and took on all the responsibilities of a homeowner. Always struggling to catch up on my list of things to do, and trying to manage a new baby, I wonder how anyone ever gets things done. Sometimes when I’m trying to save time fixing a window rope or shimming a door catch, I ask myself, “How would Uncle Moe do this?” My uncle Moe knew all there is to know about how things work. I need him now.

In my mind’s picture of him, Moe is a giant: he has a broad, square forehead, thick lips, large round eyes, a barrel chest and hefty, long legs. He is a larger version of Fred Flintstone come to life.

Everybody in the family welcomed Uncle Moe and Aunt Betty whenever they came to visit. Moe would enter smiling, stooping so his seven-foot frame could fit through our doorway. After settling in upstairs, he’d come thumping down into the kitchen.

“Barb, what’ve you got for me this time?” he’d boom. He knew that waiting for him would be my mother’s mental list of things that needed fixing in our house: that windowpane on the sunporch door we broke racing for the TV, the leaky shower again (a perennial).

Whenever Moe was in our house, I was ready for anything. He was fond of keeping busy, mentally and physically. When he wasn’t poring over a crossword puzzle book or trying to talk to my incomprehensible five-year-old sister, he was fishing or repairing or playing poker. And whatever he was doing or thinking you could wind up doing or thinking too if he decided to reel you in. His curiosity could unintentionally embarrass you if you were ten. At dinner: “Mister Christopher, how many girlfriends have you gotten since I saw you last?” His unflappable energy could wear you out if you weren’t prepared. On the front porch: “Help me fix this light switch and then the back step so maybe next time something breaks you can fix it instead of me.” He would treat you like a little man, as if what you said and did were just as important as what he or anyone else did.

Moe’s presence meant that silence could suddenly be broken by an old song. Or he might tell a dirty joke that even my father would laugh at. In fact, Moe was the only brother-in-law that my father seemed to tolerate in his house. It may have been his appreciation of Moe’s mechanical ability (which my father lacked). But I think the real reason why they got along was because Moe got along with anyone.

I think Moe especially enjoyed visiting our house. He loved small children, loved confounding their feeble minds with his riddles and probing questions. Moe would delight in some unpredictable answer to his questions. And he had pet names and running gags with each of us, Anna Banana and her flaming hair, King John and his bellyful of cotton, K-K-K-Katie, the slug kisser.

With me, Moe loved to help dissect small objects, not living things, but transistor radios, small electric motors, kitchen gadgets, and the treasured television set. I loved our kitchen-table lab work. He would explain the workings of a capacitor and quiz me on the value of a resistor with red, brown, green, and orange stripes (2153 ohms). Moe brought me my first electronics test kit, full of tiny magical pieces. He seemed to delight in passing on his knowledge of mechanical and electronic things; we would spend hours at the kitchen table ripping the guts out of perfectly good appliances.

Moe’s visits to our home in coastal Massachusetts would always include a day-long deep-sea fishing trip. He would set off at about 5 a.m. and return in the afternoon with a cooler full of fish. He would stride up the back steps and ceremoniously deposit them on the kitchen table. “Christopher Martin, are you experienced in cleaning Atlantic flounder [or haddock, or cod]? Please assist me.” My assistance usually entailed collecting the heads in an old Boston Herald American or Lynn Daily Item and escorting them to the garbage pail out back. (I didn’t know what the fish tasted like because I refused to put any kind of fish into my mouth until I entered college.) I always wanted Moe to take me along fishing with him. It never happened, though.

My uncle Moe died in 1999. He was 80. The last time I saw Moe, a few years ago, I reminded him that my girlfriend was now my wife, and I had a baby, and a dog. I wanted to get out my list of household questions (but I was too shy): How do I patch a wall and do I have to prime before I paint? How can I keep the pipes from banging at night? What's the best kind of cleaner for an oil stain? Moe always had an answer.