The Legend of Uncle Bill

Hello,
Just an update from the field since my knitting friends think I've gone awol. I missed the last knitter's guild of the year. Very unlike me. I just plain forgot. My knitting has really fallen by the wayside recently. I finally figured it out. I have been knitting "the cable nightmare" for 2 years now, on and off. I decided I would not work on anything else until it was done. Strangely my interest in knitting has waned over the last few months. I've wanted to knit but just couldn't make myself. Even stranger was that I didn't understand why. Ah, at last some wisdom has percolated into my addled brain. I've been monogamous too long. As soon as I realized I wanted to knit a baby blanket for a friend's new baby I haven't been able to put the needles down. While in Boston I spotted some groovy, overpriced yarn in a trendy yarn store. I schmoozed with the ladies, impressing them with my lingo, tossing around names (oh yes, I love Alice Starmore patterns...blah blah blah...), bought the yarn and started a scarf. I am obsessed again. I left the baby blanket project at a friend's house this week and it's killing me. No more monogamy, the yarn slut is back!

Chemo seems to have settled into a routine. God, what a weird thing to say. the last round was a breeze. It might have had something to do with me taking one of Alain's meloxicam for his stress fracture by accident. I thought it was my citalopram. for you non-medical types it's just an anti-inflammatory not a freakin' narcotic. I score those outside my office on Monroe Ave. The high school kids just stand there outside our break room on a busy street corner and light up weed. Other mornings there's a homeless guy or two passing a brown paper bag.

So the title of this post says "The Legend of Uncle Bill." This is a story I've wanted to tell for a while but have been unable to write. How do I do the man justice? For a long time I felt the need to get all the details correct. I even called Uncle Bill and interviewed him. I have let myself off the hook for the simple reason that I will never get it exactly right and as you can see from the last post, some Moran will respond by telling me exactly what detail I got wrong (ahem, Mom...). So, Frankie, Martha, Nancy, Sally, Susie and any other "Moran Police" who feel the need to correct me, this is just an artistic rendering if you will, a gestalt, a mood piece, a fable...and if you don't like it. Get your own blog.

If you recall the other postings you know that the Moran clan is highly respectful of tradition. Our traditions, the ones we find funny. We don't respect much else. We will do things to amuse ourself and mortify those who have married into the clan because it is more fun that way. My mother and her siblings loved to remember games they played as a child. A favorite was called Chuckle Belly. Everyone lies down on the floor at right angles, one head lying across another person's abdomen. The first in the line says just, "Ha!" The second person says it twice, the third, three times and so on. Go ahead try it. The Morans can't get past the third "ha" before everyone is laughing with their heads bouncing up and down on each other's bellies. It's hysterical actually. My mother and her siblings proved this by starting a game at a wedding reception. Maybe I'm not being clear here. They were not children, they were grandparents when they did this. Hey, it's a tradition.

Uncle Bill though, is a tradition unto himself. In addition to being a major player in all the water fights he alone has a tradition unique to him. It started years ago and it involved a cake. It was a cake he was not supposed to eat but there it was, a slice missing and someone very upset. Uncle Bill explained that taking a slice of the cake was an old Irish tradition. The male head of the family was supposed to sample the cake and make sure that it had not been poisoned before guests could eat it. Apparently this assuaged the indignation.

Well, give the man an inch and he takes a mile. Uncle Bill ran with that and has been running with that excuse for years. At the wedding reception of his brother's daughter he was seated near the cake. The dinner went on and on. The reception hall was hot. No one was cutting the cake. Time went by, still no cake. Bill thought the cake was going to melt. "Well, I'm just going to go get myself a piece of that cake!" and off he went. The cutting ceremony followed seconds later by a flustered wedding party with the missing piece hidden in the back.

At my cousin John's wedding the tradition had been well established. So John's new wife was ready for Bill. She enlisted John's brother, Tommy to stand guard at the cake. The reception goers waited to be seated at dinner. All the Moran siblings were to be seated together. My mother was standing with Uncle Bill and some of her sisters waiting to sit down when she noticed Uncle Bill was eating. No one else was eating... He'd accomplished his mission and changed out of his ninja gear long before the "guard" was posted.

At my wedding I felt sorry for Uncle Bill. The cake wasn't in the reception hall. I was actually a little sad that he wasn't going to sabotage the confection. Unbeknownst to us, Uncle Bill was up to the challenge. I think they'll be using this as plot device for the next Bourne Identity movie. Uncle Bill talked with one of the waiters. He told him as the eldest member of the family he had to inspect the wedding cake. It was an old Irish and family tradition. The waiter was a little confused. He called a manager. Uncle Bill explained the story to her. After some negotiations she led Bill downstairs into the bowels of the Hanover Inn and to the restaurant kitchen. The cake was delivered later to the wedding party minus one small, perfect wedge.

The picture above shows us pointing at the culprit. Obviously the photo was staged.