My wife’s Great-Uncle… who was also a great uncle… passed away recently. Goodbye, Uncle Bill. You were a hell of a man.
Uncle Bill fought with the Marines on Okinawa in World War Two. I will share some of those stories over the next few days. We went to Iowa a few times for family reunions, and every time it was a magical adventure.
Uncle Bill was a farmer. He lived and worked on the family farm. And farming is not easy. But Uncle Bill knew how to play when he had some time off. And he loved to show the city-dwellers the joys of farm life when we came to visit…
He liked to have a bonfire in the driveway during these family reunions. And I mean a big bonfire… that he used to set on fire with this big blowtorch thing…
I swear you could cook a whole herd of cows on some of those bonfires.
He liked to let us city-slickers ride around on the little tractor he had. He had big tractors too, but this one is a lot of fun to go for a joyride on…
Here he is making sure I knew what I was doing before he let me drive Mollie around… awww… look how small she was back then. Notice Jessica soaking it all in, just waiting for her turn…
Jessica got her turn on the little tractor, but Uncle Bill was making sure she didn’t get hurt… or knock down a fence or anything.
Uncle Bill will be missed. He was one of a kind. And the guy knew how to have a ball…
Good bye uncle Bill.
Indeed… ha!
You have the best relatives. I love how much you love them.
Wait till you hear about this guy… oh man… and that is me saying that, so…
sorry for you’re loss he truly looked like a fun guy.
He has stories that rival mine. Had stories, I guess…
i can imagine.
You don’t have to, because I am going to tell some of them…
okay
yako
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Please be assured of my prayers at this time, friend. God bless you and yours.
Thank you so much.
Can’t wait to read more stories….I’m sure you will do him great justice!
If I can’t tell a story about me, it better be someone as interesting as I am…
See…I knew they would be worth reading!!
I wouldn’t try to do a series of posts on someone boring, even if they were in my family.
Haha…..I’m sure we all appreciate that.
I should hope so. I have standards, dagnabbit.
I will be looking forward to “meeting” him in your upcoming posts. He looks like quite a guy. I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you, and he was.
Sniff. Keep em coming. The funeral was grand. I kept hearing the verse from Salt n Pepa’s song “What a man, what a man, what a man! What a mighty good man!” running thru my head all during it.
Definitely…would have disturbed myself if it had…lol. Don’t think it will hurt even if you do get carried away. Uncle Bill loved a good laugh, even if he didn’t understand it exactly, and I think it would tickle him pink to be featured on the web! I alerted the troops to look for your posts so bet your hits go up for a bit anyways.
I’m sorry for your loss, Arthur. Uncle Bill was obviously an amazing man. I saw him earlier when I was looking through some of your back posts. This was a nice tribute to him today.
You might be thinking of Uncle Bert… he is the one from the camping posts, and the one riding the dinosaurs. Bert taught me a lot about Photoshop, and they live about 40 minutes away so we see them often. He is still alive. He is the one who almost ended up with the scorpion in his shorts. I don’t know if I have done pictures of Uncle Bill before. But Uncle Bill was amazing too.
Ahh, yes, I probably *saw* Uncle Bert. It was lovely to read about Uncle Bill, and I see you have another post. I’m off to read it now.
Yay.
The heroes of Uncle Bill’s time are fast leaving — by sharing his story in these posts, you help keep his spirit alive.
Thanks.