1) Today would have been Uncle Bill’s 94th birthday. I did not remember to observe it during his lifetime as much as I should have.
2) Bill was a talented amateur phoographer - what I would call an abstract photographer. So many of his compositions involved near microscopic details in pieces of slag glass or other unusual items. I remember he did some beautiful dune-like photos using a fake tortoiseshell box I’d given him one Christmas. I also remember, more rarely, some beautiful photos of dogwood blossoms from a tree in their yard. Those I remember encouraging him to frame specially as a triptych in a maple frame, but he always used those cheap black and gold frames from the dime store.
2a) We found ribbons he’d won in photography contests.
3) I have sometimes described alumni as people who “want to be at the party but don’t know how to be at the party,” and there were occasions where Bill fit that description, too. His contribution to family occasions was to dry the dishes, and Mother was always very grateful for his help.
4) When the movers arrived April 23, I was surprised that one drawer of the tallboy still had some things in it, including some things of Uncle Bill’s that were among his most treasured possessions. One of them is a baseball autographed by every member of the 1944 Ridgewood High School baseball team, of which Bill was the manager. He, like me, was no athlete, but he did what he was able to do for the good of the team. And I guess he had happy memories of that, because perhaps he wouldn’t have kept that baseball all his life if he hadn’t.
5) When you think about it, “He did what he was able to do for the good of the team” is a pretty good epitaph. Wish I’d thought of it earlier that this very moment.