“The ladies”
Billy was our babysitter. Uncle Billy. My mother’s brother. A homebody, most of the time, he watched my siblings and me almost every weekend while my mother was shopping with her sisters. Small. Popeye. Born in the early 1940s. He loved Led Zepplin, the Philadelphia Flyers, Spider-Man and as he put it “the ladies".
Creative. Devilish. He found ways to pass the time that, looking back, I’m not sure I’d want my children to experience—but I loved him thoroughly, looking back on the time fondly.
Huckster and the horse teeth
One Saturday, during a neighborhood visit from a huckster leading a horse-drawn wagon brimming with fresh vegetables, he paid my brother Mark fifty cents to run next-door to grab my aunt’s toothbrush. Boom. Billy asked the huckster if Mark could brush the horse’s teeth. The animal turned the corner, getting ready to visit the next block, with the shiniest choppers. The toothbrush was returned.
Siblings.
Eating icky stuff builds character
With a bushel of fresh vegetables, we had more onions than could possibly eaten. Pulling a crumpled dollar bill from his pocket, Billy challenged us. Whomever could eat an onion like an apple, by biting, chewing and swallowing, would win the dollar. Six kids ate six onions. Mark won. A lemon eating contest followed. Mark won.
An hour later, an ice cream truck turned the corner. Heads spun. Billy grinned and bought each of us whatever we wanted, plus a couple of extra soft-serve chocolate cones.
Satan-clown
Cool treats in the hot sun, Billy had Mark run into Billy’s kitchen to get a can of baked beans. The screen door slammed.
Returning, Mark realized and slid carefully between the jamb and the screen door. Squating, Billy produced a ten dollar bill. Our eyes lit because, with the exception of Mark, we hadn’t figured out what was going to happen next.
Grinch-grin, Billy pulled out a Frisbee. Upside down, he poured the baked beans into the saucer followed by the mess of three gooey soft-serve chocolate cones. Having forgotten to have Mark get spoons, Billy sent him to my mother’s China cabinet.
Stirring the sludge, our Satan-clown reminded us that we were free to ride our bikes or play ball but, it we wanted the Frisbee, we’d have to earn the ten dollars—first come, first served.
Mark won.
Over the years, Billy was inventive. Jumping on ketchup packets. Betting on who could fart first. Leaving liverwurst on the sidewalk, wagering pennies on how long it would take an animal or neighborhood kid to eat it. Paying us to sprint through the zoo screaming “Monkeys, monkeys!”.
Love and the library
Once a month, however, Uncle Billy would have each of us write an anonymous letter on a fresh sheet of white paper. Each letter was written to another child — in pencil — reminding that child that they were a good person, that their future was bright and that they would go on to do great things. When we finished, he took us to a library and had us each pick out a children’s book. Our letter — the letter we’d personally written — was placed in the book we’d chosen, to be found later by a child when it was pulled off the shelf.
Passing the torch
Fittingly, his life ended in absurd perfection. At age seventy-eight, having just gotten back from the library, he passed of a massive heart attack, laying on his back, while having sex with a giant woman, eating a bowl of ice cream and watching a Flyers game—all at the same time.
He had fifty bucks on the game.
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