Uncle Wiggly
Uncle Wiggly actually isn't very wiggly at all, and he isn't an uncle, either. It's too lengthy an explanation for this moment. He is a great guy. Unfortunately he is losing his mind. He is in his mid 80s and he lives alone, with very few visitors. About ten years ago he lost his ability to speak and swallow whole foods to cancer of the throat and tongue. He had a lovely voice and he still has a sparkle to him, through it all. It is very difficult to understand him when he speaks, and almost impossible in a situation where there is ambient noise, as in a party or at the beach or just about everywhere, so he eschews most social occasions. And he shies away from personal commitments beyond those he is genetically related to for the most part. He wants none, not even a dog, though several have wanted to share their lives with him since his wife, Aunt Bobbie died.
Aunt Bobby was really a first cousin, but she was exactly the same age as my mother. Aunt Bobbie's mother was my mother's oldest sister. When his dog passed on, Bill said that he would never get another one. He loved his dogs over the years. They would always do peculiar tricks, like balancing a piece of food on their noses until Bill would say "paid for" and they'd snap the meat in the flick of their nose, the blink of an eye. I think the drill came from the Brothers Karamotzov, I'll have to check though. So he is starting to get lost, wandering the premises on his own, doing acrostics and crosswords ad nauseum. It has to be a terribly lonely life.
As a young man just out of Harvard, he was shot down in his plane and became a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp for a year. He was presumed dead and back home his parents had a memorial service for him. At war's end he returned, miraculously, having lost more than a third of his body weight. It took him half a century to distill them, but he wrote poems about the horrific experience. A Japanese guard, it turned out, had received some education at Harvard before the war, and threw Bill a scrap or a cigarette every once in a while. He knelt before a prison guard not to genuflect before his god, but to save his own life. Uncle Bill would never talk with anyone about the War. Why would he? People would have chattered lightly. They would not have heard what he was saying. So there it lies, within, scarcely expressed. He will take it with him, but he does not believe there is a heaven or a hell.
Aunt Bobby was really a first cousin, but she was exactly the same age as my mother. Aunt Bobbie's mother was my mother's oldest sister. When his dog passed on, Bill said that he would never get another one. He loved his dogs over the years. They would always do peculiar tricks, like balancing a piece of food on their noses until Bill would say "paid for" and they'd snap the meat in the flick of their nose, the blink of an eye. I think the drill came from the Brothers Karamotzov, I'll have to check though. So he is starting to get lost, wandering the premises on his own, doing acrostics and crosswords ad nauseum. It has to be a terribly lonely life.
As a young man just out of Harvard, he was shot down in his plane and became a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp for a year. He was presumed dead and back home his parents had a memorial service for him. At war's end he returned, miraculously, having lost more than a third of his body weight. It took him half a century to distill them, but he wrote poems about the horrific experience. A Japanese guard, it turned out, had received some education at Harvard before the war, and threw Bill a scrap or a cigarette every once in a while. He knelt before a prison guard not to genuflect before his god, but to save his own life. Uncle Bill would never talk with anyone about the War. Why would he? People would have chattered lightly. They would not have heard what he was saying. So there it lies, within, scarcely expressed. He will take it with him, but he does not believe there is a heaven or a hell.
posted by Stonechuck at 11:06 PM
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