Cousin George: "Only fools wear pajamas"

I'm starting a new series of autobiographical stories with a Gemstone connection, mostly South Carolina or megachurch-related.  First up: Cousin George:

 
My Cousin George, son of my father's older brother, was just my age, tall and blond, with a hard chest, a thin belly, and a Southern drawl.  He lived in Walterboro, South Carolina, about 50 miles from Charleston but a thousand miles from Rock Island, so we visited only a few times during my chiildhood.  Usually my Grandma Davis took me down on the train.

What I remember most about my visits: the sizzling heat, the humidity, and the beefcake.  No one in South Carolina owned a shirt. I had never seen so many  muscular bodies.

And the racial diversity: Cousin George had friends who were Native American and Chinese, and even black (I never saw anyone black in heavily-segregated Rock Island).

We went fishing and crabbing, and  Cousin George warned me to avoid the "dead man's fingers" inside the crab shells that would turn you into "a goon."

We went swimming in the warm salty Atlantic Ocean.

At night Cousin George and I took our baths together together in scalding-hot water, and then slept naked together under thin sheets -- "only fools wear pajamas," he insisted.

When I was 13, Grandma Davis got sick, and the train-visits stopped.  We didn't stay in contact.  Occasionally my father would tell me something about his three older sisters, but he never mentioned Cousin George.  Apparently my uncle never mentioned him. Was he dead, or disinherited, or a disappointment?