No Matter Where You Go . . .

. . . there you are. That simple but complicated wisdom was given to me by my dear friend Bill, who would have turned 69 today. Bill, a victim of ALS, died last August. I'd been able to visit him at his home in North Carolina last spring, and we strolled several miles down Memory Lane. We recalled our teenage habit of "playing" with that cursed Ouija Board, tool of the devil. (Please realize that my tongue is currently in my cheek.) Bill asked me if I remembered asking Ouija when we would die. I was grateful that I could not. But Bill remembered what Ouija told him: that he would die when he was 69.

Well, Ouija fell almost eight months short of being accurate, but still, the prediction came pretty close. Does it mean anything? No, it's just one of many memories that I cherish about my friendship with Bill. We were an unlikely combination in many ways. While Bill was in the stands at drag-racing events, I was attending Catholic "religious instructions" and Girl Scout meetings. While Bill was always giggling and telling stories, I was often sunk in teenage depression. And while I was filling out college applications, Bill was preparing for Vietnam.

During Bill's tour-of-duty in that horrid war, I became his #1 pen-pal. For years, I hung on to the 96 letters he sent me, but they got lost somewhere along the way. (I just realized that 96 backwards is 69. I don't even know why I've always remembered the number of letters he sent. And '69 was also the year that Bill was in the war. Again, does it mean anything? I don't think so. They're just numbers, right?) Bill and I continued our friendship after he returned from Nam, a friendship in which we resumed our love of music. And just thinking about that puts Rod Stewart's 1970 solo album Gasoline Alley in my head. I can never hear those songs without thinking of Bill.

But I don't need music to think of Bill. Anybody who was lucky enough to know him would agree. His easy manner, his childlike laugh, his soothing voice, his crazy stories . . . being in Bill's company (especially when sitting on a barstool) was "good old country comfort" indeed. Bill collected things: rocks, arrowheads, baseball cards . . . and cats. He was passionate about the people and things that he loved. And Bill had a way of making you feel loved.

"That's drag racing: you win some, you lose some, and some get rained out." While Bill may have tweaked Satchel Paige's axiom to fit his own chosen recreational activity, I will always consider this bit of wisdom as Bill told it to me. And, of course, it matters little whether it's drag racing or baseball or beach volleyball. It's all about the game of life. Bill got rained out, but he did not lose. He lives on in the hearts and minds of the many friends he gathered together on the playing field.

Birthday greetings, dear Bill . . . wherever you are.