At the expense of sounding like a weirdo, I love my Uncle Bill.

When we write each other, he is Sundance and I am Butch, which is a long story, but the short story is that I love him, and that with all my faults, he loves me. I can tell.

He has always taken time for me and seemed interested in whatever I was interested in at the time; all my thoughts of him are good, and always have been.

So I saw him Wednesday when I did a fast-break to momma’s to eat a weekday sandwich and see her and Don, her husband of 30 years?; it might be 30 years this June, now that I think about it. I remember when they got married in California, I called her that day from the press box in Omaha, Nebraska while I was covering LSU in the College World Series. I think they were in Carmel. First week of June. Happy Almost Anniversary, momma!

Uncle Bill and Aunt Willie live next door, and have lived there for more than 50 years. The picture you see here is of Uncle Bill and some of his roses. Some are beaten down by last week’s rain, but still, gallantly, they are holding their own.

After eating with momma, I walked next door where Uncle Bill was already in the back yard, working. Now retired, he loves yard work, as he always has. When they bury him, it will be a shame if we don’t put a pair of clippers in his back pocket.

I walked past a couple of pots of pansies — it’s been so cool they are still looking beautiful — and was greeted by oakleaf hydrangeas on my left. A fountain and tiny azaleas in front of me. Beautiful and full baskets of dianthus and verbena. And the roses, some of them almost as old as —but not as beautiful as — my Uncle Bill.

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