My cousin Bill
Nov. 17th, 2005 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisMy Mom had one brother who was killed in World War II long before I was born. My Dad had one sister - Kay. Kay married Ray and they had Bill and so I have a cousin. I spent most of my growing up years in the South in the 50's and 60's. Having only one cousin and having that one cousin live 1,500 miles away was odd indeed. My friends all had oodles of cousins many just down the street. So there was never anything usual or normal about me and my cousin.
He is 4 years older than I am which would make him 60 this year. Wow. Anyway, when he was in high school, my Dad convinced his sister to let go of him for a Summer and he moved from Oklahoma City to our house. He was nice. When we were little and used to go visit, he always shared his toys and was a nice kid. In high school he kept his niceness. Daddy got him a job for the Summer and it was fun to have him around. Fun for me anyway. My brother and sister kind of ignored him. My Mom did, too.
My father had massive gender issues. If you were female everything you did was wonderful. If you were male, and didn't live up to expectations (his expectations which you kind of needed a secret decoder ring to decipher), life wasn't so good with Dad. My brother always had a hard time of it. And my cousin did not escape. He was never good enough for my father and my father always felt it was his duty to let everyone - including my cousin - know this.
Cousin Bill went off to college and graduated and then enlisted in the Army and, at the peak of the Vietnamese war, got stationed in Germany. Served 4 years and got out. Signed on with the electrical union and became a construction electrician. MUCH to my father's dismay. (The journeyman electrician thing was bad enough but union??!! oh the shame.)
Bill's Mom - Daddy's sister - one night came home from dinner out with Bill and my uncle and all of a sudden got a terrible headache and died of a burst aneurysm within hours. This was about 1975. Bill's dad died of just plain old age about a dozen years later. Bill had never moved out of their house in Oklahoma City and he just stayed there. Kept electricioning.
Daddy called him every once in a while but Bill was never one for conversation so not much info was swapped. I wrote him letters a lot. At one point, in the 80's I wrote him every day. Long hand, yellow pads. He was my LJ. He never answered. I knew he wouldn't. But I also knew that he read every single letter.
In 1988, my sister was planning her wedding in Central City, Colorado. I was living in Rochester, MN. I wrote to Bill that I thought he should meet me in Rochester and we could go together plus make it a road trip. To my shock and delight, he agreed. And we did. And it was fabulous. Neither of us had ever been through that part of the country. We stopped when we wanted. We saw the corn palace. We shopped at Wall Drug. The picture below is at Mt. Rushmore (click on it and you will see...).
The wedding was a yawner but the trip was wonderful.
Then I moved to California. I quit writing because I really didn't have the time and I was going through a very social time - tons of people around all the time. I can't remember talking to Bill or writing to him or hearing from him. I might have. I just don't remember.
Daddy died in August of 1999. My brother and sister and Mom and I were all together and someone said 'did anyone tell cousin Bill? I guess we should.' I was elected to call and I did. It was a short conversation - just the facts, ma'm. A typical cousin Bill phone call.
Two days later, we had the memorial service at the church. The four of us had just sat down in the front of the church when I looked around and I'll be fucked but there was Bill on the back row!! In the church in Charleston, South Carolina. He had flown in and arrived that morning. It was wild and so very like him - to show up, unannounced, after not having even seen any of us for a decade.
He and I had a very good visit and some great laughs. His sense of humor is so dry, you worry about fires starting. He was still living in Oklahoma City in the same house. Still an electrician. Never married. Scout volunteer. Wears the same jeans and blue oxford cloth shits that he's worn since high school. No computer. No interest.
He stayed another day and it was great to see him. And none of us - me included - have talked to him or communicated with him since.
Really.
For some reason, he popped into my brain the other day and he won't come out. I have no idea if he's even still alive. I'm guessing he is. Somehow I think I'd hear if he wasn't but I'm not sure how. I thought about calling but I'm short on minutes this month. So my plan is to send him a post card warning him that I am going to call sometime after Thanksgiving. I'm writing it right after this entry.
Oh I did google his phone number which is listed in my Treo as JA2-4782 - I remember the JA stands for Jackson. And I remember when they got that number because it was when they gave up the party line. I loved that party line. The woman next door who was on the same line was hilarious. Google gave me back his name and address. His name is not unusual enough to get much else - William Raymond Davis.
He is 4 years older than I am which would make him 60 this year. Wow. Anyway, when he was in high school, my Dad convinced his sister to let go of him for a Summer and he moved from Oklahoma City to our house. He was nice. When we were little and used to go visit, he always shared his toys and was a nice kid. In high school he kept his niceness. Daddy got him a job for the Summer and it was fun to have him around. Fun for me anyway. My brother and sister kind of ignored him. My Mom did, too.
My father had massive gender issues. If you were female everything you did was wonderful. If you were male, and didn't live up to expectations (his expectations which you kind of needed a secret decoder ring to decipher), life wasn't so good with Dad. My brother always had a hard time of it. And my cousin did not escape. He was never good enough for my father and my father always felt it was his duty to let everyone - including my cousin - know this.
Cousin Bill went off to college and graduated and then enlisted in the Army and, at the peak of the Vietnamese war, got stationed in Germany. Served 4 years and got out. Signed on with the electrical union and became a construction electrician. MUCH to my father's dismay. (The journeyman electrician thing was bad enough but union??!! oh the shame.)
Bill's Mom - Daddy's sister - one night came home from dinner out with Bill and my uncle and all of a sudden got a terrible headache and died of a burst aneurysm within hours. This was about 1975. Bill's dad died of just plain old age about a dozen years later. Bill had never moved out of their house in Oklahoma City and he just stayed there. Kept electricioning.
Daddy called him every once in a while but Bill was never one for conversation so not much info was swapped. I wrote him letters a lot. At one point, in the 80's I wrote him every day. Long hand, yellow pads. He was my LJ. He never answered. I knew he wouldn't. But I also knew that he read every single letter.
In 1988, my sister was planning her wedding in Central City, Colorado. I was living in Rochester, MN. I wrote to Bill that I thought he should meet me in Rochester and we could go together plus make it a road trip. To my shock and delight, he agreed. And we did. And it was fabulous. Neither of us had ever been through that part of the country. We stopped when we wanted. We saw the corn palace. We shopped at Wall Drug. The picture below is at Mt. Rushmore (click on it and you will see...).
The wedding was a yawner but the trip was wonderful.
Then I moved to California. I quit writing because I really didn't have the time and I was going through a very social time - tons of people around all the time. I can't remember talking to Bill or writing to him or hearing from him. I might have. I just don't remember.
Daddy died in August of 1999. My brother and sister and Mom and I were all together and someone said 'did anyone tell cousin Bill? I guess we should.' I was elected to call and I did. It was a short conversation - just the facts, ma'm. A typical cousin Bill phone call.
Two days later, we had the memorial service at the church. The four of us had just sat down in the front of the church when I looked around and I'll be fucked but there was Bill on the back row!! In the church in Charleston, South Carolina. He had flown in and arrived that morning. It was wild and so very like him - to show up, unannounced, after not having even seen any of us for a decade.
He and I had a very good visit and some great laughs. His sense of humor is so dry, you worry about fires starting. He was still living in Oklahoma City in the same house. Still an electrician. Never married. Scout volunteer. Wears the same jeans and blue oxford cloth shits that he's worn since high school. No computer. No interest.
He stayed another day and it was great to see him. And none of us - me included - have talked to him or communicated with him since.
Really.
For some reason, he popped into my brain the other day and he won't come out. I have no idea if he's even still alive. I'm guessing he is. Somehow I think I'd hear if he wasn't but I'm not sure how. I thought about calling but I'm short on minutes this month. So my plan is to send him a post card warning him that I am going to call sometime after Thanksgiving. I'm writing it right after this entry.
Oh I did google his phone number which is listed in my Treo as JA2-4782 - I remember the JA stands for Jackson. And I remember when they got that number because it was when they gave up the party line. I loved that party line. The woman next door who was on the same line was hilarious. Google gave me back his name and address. His name is not unusual enough to get much else - William Raymond Davis.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 12:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 12:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 01:02 am (UTC)I saw Mt Rushmore way back when. My dad took 8mm camera footage of it and us back in the dinosaur age of video.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 01:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 02:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 03:32 am (UTC)I have no first cousins and very few 2nd ones..seen once every 10 years or so.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 06:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 11:54 am (UTC)I'm glad you posted that picture. Now I have a clear view of you in my head.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 08:54 pm (UTC)Hey, thanks for the tip on AirSet, it's awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 09:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-18 10:02 pm (UTC)