For Bill

My senior year of high school, I got a job working part-time at a radio station.  I came in during the week for two hours each morning to intern with the news department.  I got school credit for it and got to miss first period every morning.  So, win-win.

During college, I continued working there, eventually moving up to a full-time on-air shift.  We carried local high school basketball and football games, and "Bill" was one of the guys who did play-by-play for our sports broadcasts.

Bill was 60ish.  Gregarious.  He had a zest for life, and people, and conversation.  And I never knew why, but he seemed to take a liking to me.  Just one of those people who's always genuinely happy to see you.  That's a great quality, I think.

Anytime I'm talking to someone who doesn't know Bill, my quick, go-to description of him is "the man who always used to find me tickets to Alabama games."  And anyone who knows me at all will know that that alone would put him right at the top of my list.

It was during my time at the radio station that this occurred.

A friend and I decided we'd try and start going to some Bama games.  This was the early 90's, so way before eBay and StubHub.  There were pretty much three ways to get tickets:  Buy some outside the stadium, check the classifieds, or word of mouth.

One Friday evening at work, I guess Bill overheard me talking about wanting to go to a game.  By that night, I had tickets to the next day's game.

From that point on, he'd always ask if I needed tickets.  For about three or four years there, anytime I was wanting to go to a game, I'd call him.  And I don't think there was a single time when he didn't manage to find someone who had tickets for sale.

Sometimes I wouldn't even have to ask.  He'd call me, just to check.  I still remember those brief but oh-so-important conversations: "Bone.  Bill.  You need tickets?"

It was like he had taken it as his personal mission to always make sure I had tickets.  I mean, who does that?  It was an act of kindness for which I never got to repay him.  But I will never forget it.

Eventually I started getting season tickets.  And after I quit that job, I didn't see Bill much.  Just occasionally at a basketball game or somewhere around town.  I specifically remember one instance -- some sort of community festival.  He had clearly lost a lot of weight.  I found out later he'd gotten the cancer.  But he greeted me just like he always had.  Smiling.  Genuinely happy to see me.

Looking back, I guess by this time he must have been in his early 70's.  But not to me.  To me, he was still the same age he'd been when I first met him.  I do that sometimes, especially with people I don't see very often.  I get a picture of them in my mind, and how old I think they are, and then they're always that age.

Until they're not anymore.

A few years ago, Bill started working in the clubhouse at one of the golf courses where I play.  I was surprised to see him.  It was a good surprise.  Gregarious as ever, he looked a lot better and I silently hoped he had beaten the cancer.  We would always share a bit of banter when I played there.  He still seemed happy to see me.  And by then, I was just as happy to see him.

When he wasn't there for awhile, I asked about him, and they said he was having some health problems.  I feared the worst.  But he came back to work and I thought maybe he was gonna be alright.

Then I started missing him again.  He wasn't there two, three, four times in a row.  I asked when he was coming back.  The guy got a solemn look -- one of those looks that completely and immediately changes your mood and you don't ever want to see from anyone.  He shook his head slowly and said, "I don't think Bill's coming back."

He was right.  Bill passed away on Christmas morning.  He was 82. 

Somehow I was still surprised when I heard the news.  And stupidly, I'd never gone to visit him.

I know he would've been happy to see me.

"My old friend, this song's for you / 'Cause a few simple verses was the least that I could do / To tell the world that you were here..."

They called him Adam Yauch

I flipped on the TV last Friday evening.  The volume was down, but when I saw his picture, I knew.  MCA -- Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys -- had died.  At 47. 

A week later and I still seem to be doubled over from the proverbial punch to the stomach.  I don't know why it's affecting me so much, just that it is. 

I remember watching the video message where he announced he'd been diagnosed with cancer.  But then you don't hear anything for awhile, and it's easy to think, "Oh, he's young, he'll beat it."

Until a couple years later you see his picture on TV, and you realize he didn't.  He couldn't.  And there is only shock.  And sadness.  Deep, deep sadness.

For the better part of the past week, I've tried to come up with some way to put all these feelings into words, and mostly failed.  I just want to put on all my Beastie Boys songs, download the ones I don't already have, and listen to them for hours and hours until it somehow gets better.

I did recall that I'd written a post about the Beastie Boys a few years ago, so I looked it up.  (It's here if you want to go back and read it.)  My initial thought was that it doesn't really work as a tribute. 

Then again, maybe it does.

It recalls a time when we were younger, and it felt as if there would always be an abundance of days.  We knew life would end, but back then it was hardly a passing thought as that seemed almost incomprehensibly far away.

So much farther away than it seems today. 

"I wanna say a little somethin' that's long overdue / The disrespectin' women has go to be through /  To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends / I want to offer my love and respect to the end..."

Death, and life

Death interrupted life again last week. A friend I went to high school with passed away after 37 brief years. He was the second person I knew to die this month. Both from cancer. Both in their thirties.

Unfair is a word that I've said and heard several times in the past couple of weeks. And it does seem so. Then you ask why. But some questions don't have answers.

I like to think I'll live a healthy and long life of seventy or eighty years or more. I suppose all of us do. It's easier and more appealing to put thoughts of the brevity and uncertainty of life out of my mind and continue going through the motions. But eventually and inevitably, those realities are brought to the forefront once again.

Every death serves as a reminder, that life is temporary, that people should be cherished, and that time, sweet time is so very precious. But these... these hit harder. Maybe because they were so young, or maybe because I'm getting older. This time the reminder was in big bold letters, and all caps. And it's not fading nearly so fast.

Too often, I act like I have all the time in the world. Like there will always be another day to visit a friend, spend time with Dad, mend hurt feelings or do any of a hundred things that always seem easier to put off until some other someday.

Some years ago, I came to know a girl who was a cancer survivor. She never spoke about it very much, just little bits and pieces here and there. It always struck me how she often seemed to cram as much as she could into her days. She would do more in a weekend than I'd do in two weeks. It was as if she wanted to drink up every last ounce of life and not let a single precious moment go to waste.

I never asked but always wondered if she was like that because of what she had gone through, if by looking death squarely in the eye she had come to realize the immeasurable value of time, and to cherish it as it should always be.

And I wondered why I hadn't, and didn't.

"I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I'd been denying. He said, some day I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying..."