Friday, September 25, 2020
Bill’s world was full of love of friends, humour, and stories. Here are two.
Francine and I moved to Manhattan in 1978. I started my career in Kitchener at the Arrow Shirt factory, ended up in Toronto in the early 1970’s and then Arrow on 5th Avenue, NYC. Bill used to love coming to New York as we lived one block from the United Nations and as you may know this, he ran 5 New York marathons. The night before each race was pasta night set up in special tents in Central Park, free for all runners. Bill loved it; the camaraderie was electric. The next morning the race would start, and we would meet him on the course as he came over the 59th Street bridge on the way to Central Park. We always found him, and he always saw us. That’s amazing when you consider there were 50,000 runners. After the race, we would meet him in Central Park and have breakfast at Tavern on the Green. The winner of the marathon would always be there at another table. The next morning, he would quickly rise and walk to 5th Avenue where posted in the windows of a bank, there would be a computer printout of every runner and their times. Bill loved the idea of having his name in lights on 5th Avenue.
Remember the movie Supersize? We both watched it and I can remember quite well talking to Bill about having a contest to lose some weight. It started off pretty well, as I remember. But on one of our golf trips in Seattle, we took the ferry from Seattle across Puget Sound to the Olympic Mountains which face the Pacific Ocean. We had a great time but realized if we missed the ferry, we would have to wait more than another hour. There is a McDonald’s next to the ferry so we both walked in. I ordered first: fries, burger, and a shake. Then Bill walked up to the counter and ordered the same thing. The server took one look at Bill and said “Sir, for 50 cents, would you like to supersize that?” If you saw the movie, you would realize how funny that was. On the way back to Seattle, we laughed so hard we had tears in our eyes. I have tears remembering this story; I will miss my little brother so much.
Love to all of his friends.
Henry
