Bill & Butch

This is one of my favorite photos of Bill and Butch, even though their faces aren’t visible. I like this photo because it reminds me of the differences between the two of them.  Let me try to explain. (BTW, I’m referring to Frank as Butch in these early photos because that’s who he was then; I think he changed his name to Frank when he was maybe in the fifth or sixth grade.  At any rate, everyone in our family called him Butch [or Butchie!] even after his name change and even up to the present.  For example, our cousins have always known Butch as Butch.)

I wish I could tell you who is who in this photo.  I thought at first that Butch must be on the left because he’s holding the baseball the way a pitcher would, but Butch was a leftie, so that can’t be him.  Anyway, you can see from this photo that these two guys were just about the same size.  They were only 13 months apart.  My mother often dressed them in nearly identical outfits, but Bill was always in brown and Butch was always in blue (maybe to match their eyes?).  She often referred to them as her “little Indians.”  No doubt, she was worn out by their energy and wild play. I like to think that my parents were relieved when I arrived instead of another little Indian.

I’m imagining that my dad took this photo, staged in the backyard at 143 Pries.  I have no idea who the Ball Hawks were, but I know my dad must have been thrilled to put his two boys in baseball uniforms.  My dad was a sports nut.  He especially loved baseball.  I remember that he took Bill and Butch to New York to watch the Yankees at least once.  He also bought the boys boxing gloves, set up a punching bag apparatus in the cellar, and tried to teach them how to box.  The three of them tossed around a football in the street in front of our house on a regular basis, weather permitting.

Here’s where the differences between these two guys come in.  Butch was well known in the Police Athletic League (PAL) in South Buffalo as a very talented southpaw pitcher.  When Butch had a game at Mungovan Park or Cazenovia, my dad would show up (sometimes with me in tow) to watch Butch on the mound.  I remember his taking the team for post-game treats at the ice cream stand near Mungovan.  Bill, on the other hand, went along with the whole sports thing to some extent, but he had a very different interest, namely reading and especially reading science fiction dime-store novels.  (I think he saved them over many years, and now, if I’m not mistaken, his son Michael has them.)  They were distinctive books because each one contained two stories, and when you finished one, you flipped the book over to see a completely different cover and to read the second story.  The problem was that my dad loved the idea of Bill being such a voracious reader, but not so much his fascination with (or maybe I should say fanaticism about) science fiction.  He tended to give Bill a hard time about his reading habits.  On the other hand, I don’t think I ever saw Butch read a book.  He was a really smart kid (remind me to tell you the story from our friend Sheila Kelly on that topic), but not so much into books. Butch was more into the ladies. (More on that later.) 

Another thing Bill did makes me chuckle even after all these years.  He started an Astronomy Club, as he called it. My dad bought him a telescope, and the club met on Friday nights on the roof of our old garage.  They climbed up to the flat, tarpapered roof where Bill had set up his telescope and was ready to instruct the guys about the night sky.  He kept detailed notes in one of those black-and-white  composition notebooks.  Tom Pacer (who years later was Frank’s best man) and Dave Azzopardi, both of whom lived on Pries, were members of the club, along with Butch and one or two other guys from the neighborhood.  Bill was really into all of this stuff about space and science, and my impression was that the others thought it was great fun to be up on the roof on Friday nights in the summer, cracking jokes (that laugh, that laugh) and just hanging out.

So here are the contrasts as I see them.  Bill was a natural leader, I think at least in part because of the birth order thing.  Butch was Bill’s sidekick in many respects, always willing to go along with any of Bill’s plans just for the fun of it, basically a passive sort who just enjoyed hanging out with his big brother. Also, Bill was a talker, whereas Frank was fairly quiet, maybe because it was hard to get a word in edgewise once Bill was holding forth.  Bill was a bit of a conservative even when he was a young teen; for example, he loved Pat Boone while Butch and I were big Elvis fans. Bill went into the Air Force after high school; Texas and Okinawa were in his future, and I think he fantasized about traveling to outer space even as an adult. Butch got married soon after high school and settled in Buffalo permanently.  As the years went by, Bill and Frank went their separate ways and weren’t in close touch with each other. The point of all this, starting with the photo, is that Bill and Butch were like two peas in a pod when they were growing up, always together, different but closely connected, so-called Irish twins who shared friends and experiences.

Joan told me this happened when Bill was dying:  A hospital bed was set up for him in their living room. Toward the end, Frank made the drive every morning from Grand Island to Hamburg to sit with Bill.  There was little talk.  Frank just sat there gently and quietly holding Bill’s hand.  Given what I know about these two, I can picture Bill doing the same for Frank if their fates had been reversed.  Brothers forever. 

I hope my rambling memories explain why I love this photo so much.  Go Ball Hawks!

- Maryellen Thirolf, July 2023