The great coat-hanger debate

I don’t know if this actually happened, but supposedly sometime during my childhood a noisy argument occurred regarding how coat-hangers should be arrayed in a closet.
On one side was my Uncle Bill, who built the entire Ben Franklin Bridge (click the link, readers) single-handed with only a toothpick.
On the other side was my Aunt Betty, youngest of my mother’s many siblings. My Uncle Bill — his actual name was “Ethelbert” — was oldest.
The Ben Franklin Bridge opened in 1926 — at that time it was called “The Delaware River Bridge.” It spanned the river between Philadelphia and south Jersey, actually Camden. It was a gigantic steel suspension-bridge. For a few years it was the world’s largest.
My Uncle Bill also claimed to have invented the submarine-sandwich; “although them greazy eye-talians ruined it substitutin’ ‘maters for the cucumbers.”
He also noisily claimed to be the world’s biggest leprechaun. He was a big man, seemed over six feet 200 pounds or more.
My Aunt Betty could be just as strident. During her final days she lived in a so-called “manufactured home.” You dared not call it a house-trailer. She would angrily correct you.
(I post this in hopes it gives you some idea why I think the way I do.)
I’m not sure it was my Aunt Betty, although she was the most vocal of all my mother’s female siblings.
Oldest was Aunt Bea (Beatrice), the most normal, and second after my Uncle Bill.
Others included my Aunt Mary, eventually declared insane, although her husband bled to death after a bathroom accident.
My mother was perhaps the most emotional. If siblings were arguing, she’d start crying.
My mother was second youngest, followed by Aunt Betty.
I also am not 100% sure it was Uncle Bill, although I’m pretty sure, and wouldn’t put it past him. He was the self-declared all-knowing knower-of-all-things.
There were other male siblings, like my Uncle Herb, a collector of Lionel toy trains, and my Uncle Bucky (Walter), who my parents apparently loathed. He probably got my hyper-religious father upset mocking religion.
There also was another uncle who died young; plus “twins” who died during childbirth — I think.
I imagine the following exchange:
All my mother’s siblings arrive at my Uncle Bill’s. They go to hang up their coats.
“How come your hangers all face the same way?” someone asks.
“IN CASE OF FIRE!” Uncle Bill bellows.
Aunt Betty pipes up: “Easy pickings for burglars. Alternate hangers delay burglars.”
So began loud posturing. No one dared question Uncle Bill — except Aunt Betty, a self-declared equal.
Happily I was not witness to this argument. I’m sure the walls shook.
My mother probably interceded with tears.
(I remember Uncle Bill ending a family discussion by banging a pot on the kitchen table; I was party to that.)
So how indeed are my own coat-hangers arrayed?
All face the same way, placating my Uncle Bill.
How are they in the Pentagon, or shipboard in the Pacific fleet?
I bet Kim Jong-Un’s hangers are scattershot = not even alternate.
(He needs a hair-stylist — so too does The Donald.)

• RE: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” —“Marcy” is my number-one Ne’er-do-Well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells. At one time she asked how I managed to dredge up so much insane material to blog, and I responded “Marcy, it’s everywhere!”