Uncle Bill faced life head on and if that meant running over some people along the way, so be it. He ran over his wife and his children and never looked back. He had a mean streak in him a mile long but a streak of kindness just as big.
He was a Union man with an extraordinary work ethic and a drinking problem which he later traded for a gambling boat addiction.
Uncle Bill trained all his dogs to take off his socks at the end of the day. We thought it was a neat trick but Uncle Bill covered his physical ailments as well as his mental ones.
His final years were shared with a good woman that accented his playfulness and gave him the unconditional love he had always looked for in a bottle. Family became important again. He loved as fiercely as he had run from love in his youth.
Even lost in Alzheimer's he knew the love of his life and when she passed Uncle Bill died too.