North Star Writers Group

I’m going to change my name to Bill. I’m doing it because people are always calling me Bill. In fact, everybody calls me Bill. If I meet somebody at a party, he, or she, invariably calls me Bill. The same thing happens to me at taverns. A guy will be sitting at the other end of the bar and he’ll say , “Lemme have another beer. . . and give ol’ Bill down there another one, too.”

I haven’t the foggiest idea why people call me Bill.

I don’t think I look like a Bill. I know a few guys named Bill and I don’t look like any of them. Much.

I used to have a good friend named Bill. He owned and operated Ed’s Bar in Flint, Michigan. One time I asked him, “How come your name is Bill and the tavern is called Ed’s? “

He looked at me and said, “Darned if I know.”

Like I said, I don’t know why people always mistake me for a Bill.

At one time, I thought maybe it was because all Bills resemble each other and share similar interests. But, now, after all these years I realize that simply isn’t true.

I’ve known Bills who were short and tall, heavy and slim, funny and boring.

One Bill I knew was a wonderful singer. But another who crossed my path couldn’t carry a tune in a proverbial basket.

One of my favorite Bills was a huge man. How huge was he? Well, when that Bill was in the U.S. Coast Guard he got rip-roaring drunk one Tuesday night in San Diego, California and had his name tattooed on his left thumb - and that was nothing to scoff at because his full name was Stanislaus Alexander Wasliewski Jr.

But that was just the beginning.

Bill often became a little tipsy after a night of drinking, and when he did, he always went to a tattoo parlor for another body decoration.

Consequently, by the time he left the Coast Guard, his left thumb also was adorned with the Lord’s Prayer, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (which, contrary to popular belief, was not 107 Main St.) and the first six chapters of Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby Dick.”

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