BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE GIFT OF BIG BILL [Sun, 5-25-25]
We called him Big Bill, mostly because there was another kid in town, a couple of years younger, with the same last name. He, of course, became Little Bill.
Big Bill really was big, from about 8th grade on. A little over six feet, and heavy. Not fat, except in places. Primarily, he was bumpy. His body was pear-shaped, and lumpy. So was his head, which tapered upward to a lumpy point, a bit like a worn-down mountain range, with tufts of hair, like a burned over forest. And his teeth and nose and eyes and ears all had different ideas about what direction Bill should take.
His social skills were much like his body—bumpy, lumpy, uneven.
As we went through high school years, though, I learned that inside that bunch of lumps, he was a pretty smart guy, and as normal in his hopes and desires as any of the rest of us. So I was not as surprised as other folks when Bill tested well enough to get into the engineering program at a prestigious private university.
He didn’t last long, though. He missed home. He came back to the old home town and stayed, using his interest in engineering to become an auto mechanic.
Big Bill and I were never close, running around together, but we were friendly. When I was class president, I tried to be sure he was always inv involved in class activities, including encouraging him to come to class reunions after graduation. Sometimes I even threatened to kidnap him and take him if he didn't come on his own. That worked. So, through the years, he would call me from time to time.
He never married, although he had a girlfriend for many years. She matched him in size and lumpiness. He called me when she dumped him. “She just used me,” he sighed. “When I got diabetes, I had to stop cooking all the fried meats and sweet treats she liked.”
I guess it was the necessity of diet change that caused him to get into strange medicines, which led to conspiracy theories. He called me each time he had learned some new theory about the rays the government was using to control us, or about some new concoction you could eat or drink that would cure all your ills.
That, though, led to a new possibility. One of the off-beat doctors he consulted lived a hundred miles away, near my father’s nursing home. I asked Big Bill if he would visit Daddy when he was in the area to see the doctor. He did so. My father was so pleased. Here was somebody who knew all about Oakland City, and the curative values of drinking vinegar, something my father had gotten into.
Unfortunately, that relationship did not last long. Bill’s diabetes, or something, caught up to him. Although he was my age, he died before my father did.
His lumpiness and awkwardness were part of him. I guess the strange medicines and conspiracy theories were, too. I remember Big Bill with affection, not despite those qualities, but because of them. He trusted me to deal honestly with him as he was, and that is a great gift.
John Robert McFarland
“Watch to see where God is
working and join him.” Henry Blackaby
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