I have something of a reputation as an obituary writer.
Whether it’s deserved or not, I have no idea. What I do know is that it’s a hard pull on rough ground, uphill and into the gale, especially when the dearly departed truly is — an old friend turned dust in the wind.
But I’ve never tried to write an obit while the subject was still around to read it.
That’s what my man Hal Walter is doing as we speak — writing “a life review” of his old comrade Clint Roberts, who has been ailing for some time now and has had quite enough of it. The fabled mountain athlete has one last effort in him, and it will be to hit that Door running.
Writes Hal:
Instead of an obituary, I embraced the notion of a Life Review for Clint, a short biography of sorts. He agreed to participate during his final days from his home in Oregon. It’s lengthy, and time is short, so I have decided to present it here in a series. At this writing I am unsure whether I will complete this before he is actually gone but at least he will be able to read some of it along with many people who have been inspired by him, and those who are yet to know him through this story.
Hal is posting Clint’s story at his Substack, Hardscrabble Times. Give it a read, and consider supporting his work, which includes an upcoming book collecting his play-by-play report on how he and son Harrison navigated the mysteries of Colorado Mountain College and what came after.
She was set to retire in a couple of weeks. He was going to buy her a grill and show her how to use it.
But then what seemed to be a minor bout with some seasonal bug — fatigue, shortness of breath, surely nothing to fret about — became something else altogether.
They went to the ER instead of Home Depot. And seven days later, he was gone.
• • •
William F. White Jr. of Smyrna, Tenn., died May 17 of complications from bone cancer. He was 77.
Bill met my sister-in-law Heather F. Pigeon nearly four decades earlier, when a mutual friend introduced them at a Ruby Tuesday in Antioch, Tenn. He and Heather hit it off, and would’ve gone out together the very next night. But that was Bill’s birthday, and he had plans with his parents. So their first date got pushed back a week.
Two years later, on Aug. 4, 1990, they were married in Oak Ridge, a couple of months after Herself and I tied the knot at Hyde State Park near Santa Fe.
Bill was a Nashville boy. He was born there on March 4, 1949, and graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1967. Then Uncle Sam sent him on a road trip. He served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to ’72, including a year in Vietnam with the 1st Signal Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One). He was based first in Saigon as a typist before being sent to the field to disassemble signal towers.
“Wild Man.”
Back in the States with an honorable discharge, Bill attended Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, graduating in 1977 with a business degree and the nickname “Wild Man.”
In 1985 he joined Horizon Wine and Spirits, going on to win many sales awards over a 30-year career. The owner of one store on his route said he always looked forward to Bill’s calls because he was the only sales rep he liked.
It saddens me to say that Bill and I didn’t really get to know each other well — Herself and I saw more of Heather than Bill, even after he retired in 2015. But I can see why that store owner enjoyed visiting with him. For a wild man and a sales rep, Bill was remarkably laid back.
We did have some things in common. More hair than was deemed respectable Back in the Day®. Nicknames. And nicotine. Bill kicked the habit after taking a work-sponsored smoking-cessation class — the only one of the 20 men in the class to finish it and kick those butts to the curb.
But his sport of choice was golf. Bill originally played in the men’s league at the Old Fort Golf Course in Murfreesboro, but finally shifted to the senior league, quipping that he “couldn’t hang with the young boys.”
An Eagle Scout (Troop 121, BSA, 1964), Bill also enjoyed hiking Tennessee’s state parks, visiting local farmers’ markets, and cooking. In recent years he’d tried his hand at baking, and cinnamon muffins became one of his faves. Heather loved them too.
• • •
Maggie.
Bill is survived by his wife of 35 years, Heather F. White of Smyrna; a brother, Donald White, and sister, Linda White, both of Nashville; in-laws Beth and Darren Morgan of Woodsboro, Md., the two of us here in Albuquerque; and Magdalene, an 18-year-old tabby cat. Bill and Heather parented eight cats in the years together and fostered many more.
He was preceded in death by his parents, William F. White Sr., and Nannie (Nan) Louise Whitfield White.
Looks all Dr. Hunter S. Thompsonesque, but this shit wouldn’t get a fly high.
I haven’t had a good hard sock in the snotlocker since the Before-Time, when I was shambling around half -drunk among the sneezers, wheezers and squeezers infesting the Interbike trade show in Sin City, chronicling the ups and downs of the bicycle biz for one magazine or another.
But I got one this fall, the sort that requires medical intervention, and just in time for the 2024 pestilential erection, too.
A daily fistful of antibiotics and steroids may cure what ails the sinuses but doesn’t do shit for the psyche as the electorate inexplicably sends the Clown Prince of Mar-a-Lago and his battalion of bozos back to the Oval Office to finish the job of putting the Republic up on blocks and stripping it for salable parts.
I can’t find a physician’s assistant who’ll write me a ’scrip for mescaline, psilocybin, or Old Reliable, the fabled L-S-Dizzy, not even at urgent care. And oy, is this ever a case for urgent care.
So I guess we’ll have to rely on talk therapy. Which means – yes, yes, yes —it’s time for another dose of Radio Free Dogpatch. Sorry; doctor’s orders. Look on the bright side — it’s not a suppository.
Hm. Time for resupply. Either that or I start using the guest towels instead of Kleenex.
I may be running out of Kleenex and boogers more or less simultaneously, which I call either a miracle of planning or the usual dumb luck.
Something grabbed me by the snout a week ago Monday. I was thinking the allergies had seemed a tad fierce lately, but then Herself seemed to come down with an actual cold, so, uh, no. Not allergies. Or maybe not just allergies.
She took two Bug tests, both negative, and since we had similar symptoms I didn’t bother testing myself.
As Herself is a spry young thing she had a couple rough days, then pretty much bounced right back and soldiered on. But then she’s the type of person who would take a childhood diagnosis of asthma and allergies and be all like, “Hm, probably should stay on top of that so it doesn’t turn into a lifetime of skull-fucking sinus infections.”
Another type of person, by which I mean me, might decide to enhance these pre-existing conditions with a marinade of swimming-pool chlorine, nicotine, marijuana, hashish, cocaine, and popskull in various flavors because why the hell not? What could go wrong?
What goes wrong, in my experience, is that every so often you find yourself feeling slightly unwell, with something oozing out of your beak that looks like a microwave pizza that some cube farmer nuked on Friday, promptly forgot about, and rediscovered on Tuesday after a long, hot Memorial Day weekend.
Back in the Day® the medicos would hit you with some interesting speedy drugs and a Z-Pak, the pharmaceutical equivalent of chucking a grenade into a spider hole. Nowadays the thinking is that this only gives rise to antibiotic-resistant infections like Matt Gaetz.
Today the standard practice is to bill you for the visit and send you home empty-handed, save for some sound medical advice. “Get that shit out of here. Jesus. Makes the snack-room microwave look like a surgical theater.”
So I saved myself the trip. Lots of rest, hot fluids, vitamin C, and a really hot pot of posole. Ride it out, same way you do a White House full of eejits and maniacs. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.
The minor plague working its way through El Rancho Pendejo is taking its sweet time about the project. Herself seems past the worst of it — a lingering cough, but otherwise feels fine — while Your Humble Narrator remains in the early stages, making noises like a plumber’s helper working a clogged toilet.
As problems go, this is strictly First World, which ain’t bad for a couple of gabachos who live in the Third. We know people who have real diseases and realer troubles and somehow never go all Gloomy Gus on us.
“Gee whillikers, pal, you say you don’t feel perky enough for a little bikey ridey in the late fall sunshine? Hard knocks for sure. Our puppy just died and the basement’s flooded and the kid just got filmed having gay sex in a congressional hearing room, so we had to quit our jobs, change all our phone numbers, and cancel the Internet. Plus we have Nazis marching around the neighborhood at all hours roaring “Blood and soil!” But I feel ya, bruh. ’Scuse me, back in a jiff, I gotta put out the cat. One of the Nazis set her on fire.”
So, yeah. Instead of being a whiny little gobshite all the time (instead of most of the time) I make my little tee-hees on the Innertubes, drink lots of hot beverages, and take short walks around the foothills trails, all the while hawking and snorting and spitting and in general trying to encourage the boogers to abandon this crumbling temple of the soul and jump on someone else, preferably a cat-torching Nazi.
It even helps, for a little while. Haven’t seen any sniffling Nazis out there yet, but I remain hopeful, if not optimistic.
Speaking of optimistic, the Colorado Supremes whack an underhanded insurrectionist with the fat end of the bat. The real Supremes bat next.
