If you know our Uncle Richard at all, you would know he was never the most appropriate uncle in the world. So I can only divulge the suitable stories but I know a few of those memories will pop into your head today because of his crazy antics. He would love for you to laugh about them today.
Uncle Richard is the only one out of his nine siblings that did not live in Western Massachusetts. He moved to the Cape many years ago. The Cape was exactly where he belonged.
He was a Quahogs fisherman. He always cooked up his infamous quahog appetizers. Anytime we visited him in Chatham, he would send us home with a frozen bag of them. Growing up, I remember him as a fisherman. I knew from a very young age that he loved to go fishing and would often set out on fishing adventures to various ponds and bodies of water. One Christmas, my parents got him his fishing license as his Christmas Eve gift from Santa. He begged me to tell him what it was months before Christmas. He was so persuasive and I was so excited about the present that my little mouth just couldn't keep the secret! I remember him being thrilled with the gift and me begging him not to tell anyone I told him.
One fall day, Uncle Richard even took me fishing! The week leading up to the outing, I set aside different items of clothing that was fisherman like to impress him. I remember I wore thermal underwear, jeans and a plaid button up shirt. Exactly like him. We drove out to a local pond. We both set up our fishing poles as we waited for my Uncle Robbie, Tommy and Jeff. We were out there for an hour and no one had caught anything. All of a sudden my little red fishing pole started to bend, my pole had caught something. Uncle Richard went running over to it and helped me reel in the ONLY catch of the day. It was a cat fish! (Although in fisherman terms, I believe this is not a great catch! He never did lead onto that.) My Uncle Richard gave me all the credit for catching the fish and was boasting for the rest of the day about what a fantastic fisherman I was. I put the cat fish in a 10 gallon bucket in the back of his truck to take it home. Uncle Richard put it in my kiddie pool that my dad had set up in my backyard. I kept the cat fish as my pet!
Uncle Richard was the only person to beat Uncle Robbie and Tommy, the dream team, at a game of basketball. He had a very lucky fade away shot that won the game. That game obviously was talked about for years after. He did earn the bragging rights. In recent years he learned how to play shuffle board on the legendary camping trips to the Cape with Aunty Carol, Uncle David, Uncle Robbie and Aunty Lynda. Once he caught onto how the game worked, he loved it. He would wait around at the shuffle board courts to try and challenge newcomers.
There was even one summer where he stayed with the Shutesbury clan. He told them that during the day he would mow the lawn. When they would come home from work he would be sitting on the deck with the dogs smoking his cigarettes, claiming he mowed the lawn. After a few days, the discovery was made that Uncle Richard didn’t even know how to turn on the riding lawn mower.
Uncle Richard was the one person at Grammy’s house to race everyone to the couch to get a spot for a nap after a big meal. He was the Uncle that would always wish you a happy birthday at the end of every phone conversation, even though it was months away. We will always remember him telling you to sort your rubbish or bop bop bop, you nut. We obviously needed to sensor some of our memories, because we all know Uncle Richard had a tendency to have a dirty mouth.
We will always remember Uncle Richard as the only person that ate salad with a meatball on top, who bought life savor story books for Christmas presents and referred to the steamers he ate as puss bellies.
Needless to say, Uncle Richard was a fun loving, big hearted man. Although he never had any kids, there is no doubt in any of our minds that he loved his nieces and nephews as if they were his own. He provided us with a lot of great memories. His presence will be missed more than he will know.
We love you.
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