Big Bill -- a Tribute

As unthinkable as it is, Big Bill succumbed to leukemia last week.  The last time I saw him was in Scottsdale, Arizona, when I was on a business trip out that way in 2008.  He and Peggy wintered in Arizona – they had earned the privilege of escaping Detroit’s interminable December/January/ February/March slush, snow and blow slogfest.  They liked it out there, and Bill didn’t mind the drive.  When everyone said that they ought to fly and rent a car, he balked.  He kept his own counsel.  He knew what he wanted, and he wanted to have his own car in Scottsdale.  And that was that.  Besides, he had a few old Air Force buddies to see along the way.

The unthinkable part stems from Bill himself.  A boilermaker by trade, he was a Man’s Man.  Bigger than Life.  A hunting, fishing, hard drinking, hard working union man.  A card-carrying member of Boilermaker’s Local 169, he believed in an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work.  And he passed that sentiment on to his six children.  The poster child for the American Dream, Bill was born and raised in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, which, if you’ve ever been there, you know that it was not an easy beginning.  Situated on the fingerling Door Peninsula of Wisconsin, it’s north of Green Bay and is one of those desolate, wind-swept Great Lakes port towns where there’s not much more to do in the summer than hunt and fish; and there’s not much more to do in the winter than drink.  It’s still difficult to believe that anything could beat him.

Big Bill was my father-in-law for fifteen years.  I married his oldest daughter after a five-year courtship.  Doing the rough math, I knew Bill for a third of my life.  And even after the marriage ended ten years ago, Bill was always glad to hear from me.  He always greeted me at the front door with the greeting “Wanna beer?” – an offer I rarely turned down.  We’d settle in and soon enough, the stories would begin.  Some I’d heard dozens of times; some were new.  Stories of working on Georgia Power projects back in the Fifties, building boilers in powerplants, drinking hooch with the locals, always having a Good Time.  Or even earlier, Air Force stories of being in Occupied Japan just after the war.  Asian elders, slicing open delectable snakes with one thumbnail, were nearly incomprehensible to an impressionable young man from Sturgeon Bay.  When Bill told his stories, he kind of acted them out.  He portrayed all of the facial expressions and measured words of his encounters.  He was a hoot.

When I heard that he was in hospice a couple of weeks ago, I sent him a note, along with a photo of the two of us from 1999, sitting on a fountain in Gothenburg, Sweden.  It had been a great day – Bill had had his very first espresso (“Kinda tastes like an old rubber boot!”) and we had smoked Cuban cigars in the Swedish afternoon.  The kind of day you never forget.  I know I always enjoyed his company, and I hope that he enjoyed mine. 

As an ex-son-in-law, I exist in a familial no-man’s-land.  Not really family, but not really not.  As much as I wanted to attend the memorial, I sent flowers instead.  It was both the least, and the most, that I could do.

Peggy is a survivor and with four of her six children still in southeast Michigan, she won’t be lonely for long.  Having said that, replacing Big Bill simply isn’t possible.  I’ve never known anyone so ornery, easy-going – and loving – as Big Bill.  He had a big heart and a quiet way, but he never failed to communicate what he was feeling.  A rare quality.

His is a memory I’ll always hold onto.