When I moved into my first house, like most everyone else who buys a home, I knew none of the neighbors. A few days after moving in, I answered the doorbell to find a chap in a navy blue wool hat, perched square on his head, cat-burglar style, a navy blue jacket of the type favored by Western Electric employees, blue jeans and a cigarette. "Howyadoin', I'm Bill and I live two doors down so I'm yer new neighbor and I'm sellin' raffle tickets for the fire deparment fundraiser." I invited Bill in, we sat down at the kitchen table and had a beer, and that was the start of one of the best friendships I will ever know.
I learned, in short order, that Bill was a lithographer, he worked at one of the big print houses down by Printers' Row near Cabrini Green, he was a volunteer fireman and EMT, his brother-in-law and sister lived across the street, his dad was a retired lithographer, his wife's and son's names, who was who on the fire department, the names and bio's of everyone else on our block on Virginia Avenue and he needed to get going 'cause he had to get up early to catch the very early train for work and that he was an avid fisherman. Bill reminded me of a guy I knew as a kid, a guy to whom everyone referred as the mayor of the block. Within a short time, I had met all the neighbors, some friends from college bought a house acrosse the street (eventually my cousin bought a house there, too) and everyone, except for his wife, had begun to refer to Bill simply as "The Mayor".
Over the next twenty or so years, The Mayor and I (and more friends/neighbors) would share enough adventures to fill a book. We met and adopted each other's families, and celebrated birthdays, and Fourth of July's, and Halloweens. We shared stories. We took trips together, fishing, hunting, visiting some watering holes that bore more and more stories and adventures. Some of the travels were very near to home, some took us to parts of the state that I didn't know existed.
An example of what kind of guy the Mayor was: we took a fishing trip to a Wisconsin town that I'd been going to for a number of years but that was new to him. Another friend drove so, we were without wheels on Saturday evening. The Mayor, ever resourceful, invented river hitch-hiking. Showered and changed, went down to the shore and stuck out his thumb. Got a ride within a couple of minutes.
Late the next morning, we're walking down Main Street to get breakfast, and, one after another, strangers are calling out "Hey, Mayor" and "Yo, Bill, howyadoon'". He'd been in town barely twenty four hours and already had a constituency.
The Mayor and I shared countless hours just talking, too; sitting on stools in his garage--his "clubhouse", as the walls had begun to accumulate the souvenirs of adventures, new people, old friends. There were newspaper clippings, fishing lures, photos, a fireman's hat/genuine and a fireman's hat/toy, hats, caps, a baseball helmet, maps, menus...it was like the phony memorabilia that is on the walls of comfy contemporary bar and grill type restaurants, except this stuff was all real, and there was a story behind each piece. We discussed families, and parents, and work, and labor (Bill) vs. management (me), and fishing, and women, and kids and cars and about everything else that you can imagine. Bill could talk up a storm with anyone, anytime, on most any subject. He also had weird skills, e.g. he wasn't a golfer, per se, but if you set up a bet he'd beat you. Same thing with bowling. Didn't really go bowling, unless somebody had a money proposition, then he'd kill you. Amazing.
The photo here, rescued from the clubhouse wall, is Bill with his catch after we had taken a
salmon fishing charter on Lake Michigan. Watching Bill catch that fish was an amazing thing. The stereo was playing as we trolled a few miles offshore of downtown Chicago. The sun had barely risen over the lake horizon when Bill snatched the rod in response to the captain's cry of "fish on!" and the big salmon on the other end responded with jumps of defiance, clearing the water and leaping into the glare of the sun. What made it a complete storybook moment was that the stereo was churning out "Chariots of Fire" as Bill fought the fish, just like the whole thing had been choreographed for some tv fishing show.
We drank a lot back then. I didn't know it, but Bill drank a lot, period. One Christmas, at his family celebration, he drank enough to lose control, and the particular subject of Bill's bad behavior was his favorite nephew. When Mrs. Mayor informed Bill the next day of what he had done at the family Christmas the night before, and that she would no longer tolerate the life that this habitual behavior created, the voices inside the Mayor told him it was time. He went to his first AA meeting on December 26.
I knew very little about AA, and through The Mayor I learned a lot. I no longer lived on Virginia Avenue, though The Mayor did, so the intervals between our conversations were longer, but the intensity of the discussions was strong as ever. Bill's life changed, and we talked through it. My life changed, too, and Bill was there, and we talked through it.
Each year, on Christmas Eve, after we'd return home and the children were wherever they needed to be, I'd inevitably flip on the tv, and the pope's mass from St. Peter's would be coming on. That was my cue to pick up the phone and congratulate Bill on another year of sobriety. We'd get caught up, and I'd let him know that I was proud of what he'd done, and proud that we were still friends.
One summer vacation, when we returned home, near midnite that particular day, from a great family holiday week in Mexico, I punched the messages button on the answering maching and found a number of short, pointed, "call me" messages from friends. It was too late, after midnite--not to mention several days since the messages had arrived--to start call backs.
I knew, though.
I went into the garage, where friend and neighbor Pam had piled the newspapers that had arrived while we were away. I started tearing through them, one after another, while my wife watched, silent. When I got to Wednesdays paper, the sound just came out of me, involuntarily. Bill's obituary was in Wednesday's paper. We had been a world away when it happened, unreachable, and Bill had a heart attack and died, and he was gone, and the funeral was over, and it was too late to change any of it or say goodbye or do anything other than sit on the garage step and cry, which I did.
I don't pick up the phone anymore when the pope cranks it up at St. Peter's on Christmas eve, but every Christmas I find that I need to spend a moment with my friend Bill, and I miss him.
Another unique New Year’s found my wife and I in the party mecca of the Midwest, Winneconne, Wisconsin. It was a viciously cold day, not unlike what we’ve experienced here lately, and on this night a blizzard had seized control of the proceedings. Our friend Doug Nelson had acquired the Talk of the Town Tavern that year, adding it to the resorts he already owned in Winneconne. For the night’s entertainment, Doug had hired the music teacher from the grade school to play piano. Strike the mental image you just got of a gray haired spinster, she was a party girl who could really play—a decision that would prove fortuitous, for as the night progressed, the entire town was plunged into blackness. We learned later that one of the local drunks had failed to recognize a curve and launched his pickup into a rather important electrical transformer. Doug found candles, dozens of candles from who knows where, and the piano required no electricity. The rest of the joints in town needed electricity for their juke boxes and the amps for their bands, i.e. "party over" for them. The Talk of the Town, on the other hand, turned into a candle lit oasis, and the piano player’s tip jar was brimming. The other places in town emptied out and The Talk of the Town filled up, packed ‘till closing time.
Boston College @ Virginia Tech PK 
