Post #716469 by NorthEnder on Fri, May 9, 2014 1:22 PM

Yeah, Larry Flynt was/is a piece of work.

The problem with my memories is that I was a young kid when Uncle Bernie was doing work for Flynt. I was around 10 years old, so I don’t know much about what was happening in his life, and my mother shielded me from a lot of information, I’m sure. Bernie would often show up at our house to use the phone when he was working, which sounds crazy these days, but at that time there were no cell phones. We lived in North Linden, and he would come in, make a few calls, visit with Mom for a few minutes, and take off again. He usually wore one of those flat British caps, which was totally out of style for your typical Midwesterner. He was an eccentric guy. Always a little odd. He wrecked his car only once that I remember. He hit some black ice, lost control, and ended up having a fairly severe crash. After that, he would always wear a crash helmet with a chin strap whenever he was behind the wheel. Imagine how that looked. Anyway, Bernie may have met someone at the Hustler club…I just don’t know. He started making trips out to California regularly to do work for Flynt (I was told). At one point I heard he’d been introduced to Ruth Carter Stapleton and he became interested in Christianity. My mother, a good Christian woman, was all tingly. She bought him a Bible and did her best to encourage him, but I don’t think it lasted for very long. Anyway, one day I heard that Uncle B wasn’t coming back to Ohio anymore. He left his wife and four kids—all under 12 at the time (if I recall). After that, he just sort of vanished from our radar. Years went by without seeing him or hearing from him. After my cousins grew older they moved down South. Later on they made it out to California to visit him, but I never heard any specifics about what he was doing. When his mother died around 1990, he didn’t attend the funeral. He also missed his father’s funeral in ’95. In the late 90s my mother told us Uncle B was battling prostate cancer and he was trying some alternative treatments. And then one day, he came back to Ohio and we had a brief visit and a dinner, and that was the last time I saw him.

Actually, that’s pretty much all I know about Bernie Altenbach. I’m not sure I could give you any substantial information. I might be able to track down a photo or two. I’ll check with my mother. You should probably talk to my cousins—Bernie’s kids. I can reach out to them if you like. I’m not sure if my mother would want to talk, but she might. I could see. They know a lot more than I. Really…I’d love to hear what YOU know about Bernie—especially the stuff you can’t post online. As I’ve said, we kids were shielded from most of his life. I’d love to know more. To me he was just Uncle Bernie or “Uncle B.” He built a house out on Hoover Reservoir and we’d go out there every Christmas Eve and for birthdays and whatever. It was a modern-looking design. It’s still there off of Red Bank Road in Galena. The family room looked down on a wooded ravine and had a floor to ceiling glass window. There was a clothes chute, which we used to play with (until the adults made us stop), and he had the first microwave oven I’d ever seen. It could heat water in 2 to 3 minutes. It was amazing. But the house was always under construction. It was never finished. There was always a pile of gravel outside, stacks of things wrapped in plastic sheeting, and exposed dirt (sometimes mud) instead of lawn. Something always needed to be done. They lived in that house for more than a decade, but it was never completed. I think it was a microcosm of Bernie’s life.