Well, this is a good looking group - - - except for one person....
This was one of Bill's common sayings/expressions. He often would use this when meeting up with another foursome at the golf course.
I'm one of Bill's son-in-laws. Bill frequently referred to me as his son-in-law. He did it so often that some of his golf buddies would sometimes address me as such. Like “Hey son-in-law, get the pin.”
I met Bill in the fall of '86. My girlfriend at the time, Kris, and I drove up to Sacramento to visit him. When we arrived he had just finished vacuuming the carpet in his townhouse. Now you may be wondering how I managed to remember such a seemingly insignificant detail like that. Well, Bill was rather meticulous about things. When he vacuumed he was very careful to vacuum in a straight line so that the nap of the carpet was perfectly lined up. It looked a little like the freshly mowed outfield grass at a professional baseball park. It actually pained him when visitors, like me, walked on his carpet disturbing those freshly vacuumed lines. I'm the type of person that would not even think about how the nap lays on the carpet while vacuuming. As far as my vacuuming goes, let's just say that my relationship with our vacuum cleaner is surely not what Kris hoped it would be... That was one of the differences between Bill and myself. Bill was also more of an extrovert where as I'm an introvert. Another was Bill was very good at keeping in touch with all of his friends. He kept in touch with his high school friends, his college friends, his work colleagues, and everyone else in between. Me, not so much.
However, Bill and I had a number of things in common. We both love baseball and rooted for the Oakland A's. I like history and Bill was a history professor. We both liked to golf and shared a good sense of humor, and of course we both were very fond of his daughter Kris.
Bill and I got along right away. It was easy to feel comfortable with Bill. Bill was affable. Bill liked to tell stories and you could tell when he was about to tell one because he began with the phrase “I'll never forget.”. They were mostly interesting, especially the first time you heard them...
One of Bill's most admirable qualities was his ability to laugh at himself. That's a very likable and under appreciated quality to have. If you think about all the people you know, being able to easily laugh at oneself is not all that common. Many of us can laugh at ourselves sometimes but it's few who can do it in most any situation and in my experience, Bill was one of those few. He did this as well as anyone I have ever met. I loved that about him. It made being with him easy. Sure, like everyone, he had an ego and he could be proud - but he never seemed to let that get in the way of his dealing with others. Well, the first time I beat him in golf he did have his friend Carl serve me divorce papers at my birthday dinner.... It was a generous 50/50 split with half of everything I owned going to Kris, and the other half going to him.
It's hard to think about Bill without thinking of golf. He loved to golf and everyone I knew liked playing with him. He was very popular at the club at Indian Creek. He was also very popular with Mike's, friends as well as many many others. He just had a way about him and he remembered everybody. He treated everyone kindly and he was very encouraging unless of course you were about to take a shot that could potentially beat him... He could be quite competitive, hence the divorce, but he was never obnoxious about it. I played a lot of golf with Bill over the years. We played together in club tournaments. We played on our trips to Arizona. We played up at Little River. We played with his friends, sometimes with my friends, and, of course, with Kris. You can learn a lot about someone playing golf with them. Golf is an individual sport and as such when mistakes and bad shots happen there is no one to blame but yourself and few of us are very good at blaming ourselves when it comes to golf. Not only that those playing with you get to see your screw-ups as well. It can be humbling and worse it is highly aggravating. Everyone loses their temper at some point on the golf course. You get to see all sides of a person by playing golf with them. So Bill saw the worst side of me. I actually have yelled at him a few times over the years. If he was just my father-in-law that may have been a problem. The thing is Bill was more than that to me. He was my very good friend. We did many things together from attending baseball games, to wine tasting, to going on vacation, just to name a few. I feel very fortunate to have known him in that way.
After I retired I joined Bill's Tuesday and Thursday golf group. As you may know Bill insisted on playing all these betting games when playing a round with him. The bets were for small amounts. There was the 50 cent Nassau on score as well as a 50 cent Nassau on putts. While Bill was one of the better golfers of the group, he was clearly the best putter – hence the same bet for putts as score. There was 50 cent bets for closest to the pin on all par 3's. There was a 50 cent team bet on the 6 ,6 and 6, with his ever fluid pressing rules... Then there were like a dozen 10 cent bets on anything he could think of, like making a par under various conditions, - such as chipping in from off the green, or after having been in a sand trap, or after hitting a tree, even after landing on a leave. There's more but I think you have the picture. At the end of the round Bill would carefully do all the calculations and let us know who we owed and who owed us. If you had a great day you might win 5 bucks, but more likely the big winner would end up ahead by about 3. Bill eventually made a rule where the big winner for the day had to buy a round of drinks. Some of us drank beer, at the time costing maybe $2, some soda costing only $1, but Bill, he drank Bourbon and Coke costing $4 or more – You can do the math and as you might suspect there were a number of complaints lodged over the years on this, but after listening - Bill would simply explain that everyone was free to order a Bourbon and Coke too. As I recall, his friends were less than thrilled with his logic.
Bill kept strict records, to the point that he tracked who paid up and who didn't. He once called me at home to tell me I still owed our friend Jim 20 cents from the previous week and wanted to be sure I brought it with me this week. I was sure glad he did. After all, who leaves the house carrying that kind of money?
Bill was sentimental and very family focused and he put family, particularly his kids, first. Even though I was just an in-law he treated me as if I am more than that to him. Bill was caring, patient, engaging, and generous. Bill was one of my favorite people even if he was my father-in-law... I have many fond memories of golfing with Bill and I miss playing golf with him. But it's not so much the golf as it's Bill himself. I loved the guy and I miss him....
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