This is from the first page of one of my dad's photo albums. This is him, his brother George, and his brother Bill. All three cowboys are dead. George the oldest died of a heart attack in his mid-thirties. One story is that he had been rolled by a horse and injured his heart. The next to go was Bill. He had M.S. and he was the most bitter man you could ever meet. You could barely understand him because of the M.S., except for when he was cussing you out (which he did regularly) at which point he was as clear as a whistle. Pneumonia finally took him in his late 50s. Then there was my pa, who died of cirrhosis at 61.
I wish I could have met these boys back when this picture was taken...back before uncle Bill had become such a venomous person that no one could stand to be around him, back before my dad was nothing but a shell of a once strong man drowned in booze. I know nothing about my uncle George (he died before I was around), but I know my dad looked up to him. I have his boxing gloves from his stint as a 'potato peeler' in the Navy during WWII, and I wanted to grow up to be a boxer in part because of those gloves. I always think he would have been a cool guy, maybe he was even gay. One of my big regrets in life was that I didn't get more stories from my dad before he died. But I have his photographs, so I guess I can just keep making up my own stories.
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