More About Bill

My last post was the eulogy I gave at Bill Wade's  Celebration Of Life Service at the Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky on October 16,2022.

I had been working on the eulogy for a couple of months. Bill asked me to take part in the service when he learned the prognosis was dire, at best.

He planned his service and had six other speakers. We were given around seven minutes to speak.  I had to cut some of my eulogy down to size.  Here's what I had planned to say. 

I have some parenthetical comments in this one, too.

Before I begin, I want to express how deeply honored I am to speak to you about Bill Wade.  We had an unspoken pact that he would speak at my service if I went first and I would speak at his if he went first. (While I was speaking, I realized I was one of the few in the building that knew Bill for more than eleven years. His sisters, his wife, and his brothers in law knew him longer than me)

Bill loved "The Far Side" and used to have a Far Side mug in his office that showed two men sitting on a bench and they are in Hell. You see the flames, the Devil and his pitchfork, etc. One man says to the other man: "I hate this place".  I ran across the cartoon some time ago and I texted it to Bill saying "I remember you had this on a mug". He said, "Yes, it reminds me of First Baptist".  Bill has served with several First Baptists, so I'm not going to tell you which one he meant. But, I will tell you that loved Living Hope and he loved Bowling Green.    

 

Twenty some odd years ago, Bill used me as a reference for a para-church ministry he wanted to do part time.  The man at the ministry called me.  He asked "What can you tell me about Bill Wade?"  I said, "He drove three and a half hours to help me move from one house to another that were only 6 miles away."

To me, that sums up Bill Wade.  But there's more I would like to say.

I'm from Marietta, Georgia and I grew up with a lot of people whose fathers were engineers at Lockheed and became engineers themselves. Bill was one of the smartest people I've ever known. As my dad would say, he had good old fashioned horse sense. (My dad really thought that horse sense was the best sense.)

He considered college a challenge-a challenge to see if he could out wit the professors and he usually did.  For example, he would check the syllabus when it was handed out to see how many classes you could miss before it effected your grade.  Bill called those "free days" because you didn't pay for them.

The only time I saw him sweat in college was his last semester. He was going to graduate in December and start seminary in January.  However, before that, he had to pass a Greek class taught by a Russian immigrant who was fluent in several languages. English was not one of them. (This professor had a real interesting life. He was a Russian solider in World War II that was captured by the Germans and was imprisoned in a Stalag. After the War ended, he could not go back to Russia because he was supposed to have committed suicide when he was captured. So, he went to the United States. One thing led to another and soon he was teaching Bill Wade the Greek language)

Like most sane individuals, Bill did not do well in Greek and was worried  he wouldn't pass. He went to the professor, "Dr.Nick" and said "Dr. Nick, is there anything I can do to pass your class?"  Dr. Nick said, "It's okay, Wade, I pass you anyway".  There have always been angels among us.  

I don't know what Bill's IQ was, but his emotional intelligence was off the charts. Bill could empathize with people and that's what made him such a good counselor.  One time, we were at the Fourth of July celebration in Marietta and Bill noticed my then five year old son trying to see around people.  "All he can see are legs".

Bill's love for Dianne was authentic. I think Bill stopped thinking about other girls when he met Dianne.  I never heard him say a negative word about Dianne. He was as smitten with her in 2022 as when he met her at Hinds Junior College in 1976.

Let's just admit Bill was a Hall Of Fame husband and sometimes that made it rough on those mortal husbands among us.  One time the Wades came to visit us and we went to the mall (this was the 90s!).  Di and my wife went one direction and Bill and I went the other.  We stopped at a kiosk and Bill said, "I'm going to get this for Dianne as a happy".  I've lived in the South all my life and I never heard of a "happy".   He bought it and gave it to Dianne when we met back up with the girls.  My wife said, "Where's my happy?"  Oops. I quickly learned what a "happy" was

Of course, Bill was thrilled with his children.  Joey "The Wonderful Wade"  and Katy Bug. Joey is the world traveler and lives in Thailand. Incidentally, Joey ran for a class office when he was in high school and came up with my favorite political slogan: "Give Me What I Want And I Will Go Away".

Once I mentioned to Bill that my twelve year old son was playing football. If you know anything about youth sports you know it is dedicated to make things as expensive and inconvenient for the parents as possible.  His football program had a summer camp from 9-12 in the morning during the weekdays. I didn't know how we were going to make it work.  Being the problem solver that he was,  Bill called with Katy the next day.  Katy offered to be our "au pair"  and take our son to the football camps in the mornings. Coincidentally, there was a boy that lived up the road in Cartersville that Katy liked. So we had two "au pairs" for the price of one that summer.  That boy was Brian Owen. One time I came home from work and Brian was playing kickball with Ben and his buddies in the yard while Katy was inside the house watching  TV.   He married Katy on an October night in 2007 which featured the only time I've ever saw Bill dance-the Father and Daughter dance at the reception.

Bill was a very creative person. When he was at Murfreesboro, he called the high school ministry "Nuke Proof Ministries" and designed a ball cap with the nuclear sign on it.  The next year he came out with "Vicious Circle Ministries" and designed a t-shirt that had a dog chasing its tail.

Bill Wade was one of the funniest people I have met in my life.  Being around Bill meant you were guaranteed to have at least one belly laugh an hour.

Back when he was starting out, churches had building programs and they used the moniker "Together We Build". You may remember the offering envelope with this on them.  Bill came up with an idea: "Pools For The Pastor" in which the church would build an in ground pool for the pastor. The slogan: "Together We Swim".

He also had this idea for causal Christian wear.  His idea was to sell Christian polo shirts.  He wanted to have an alligator on it like the Izod shirt, except his would be on bended knee in prayer.  He also wanted to have one like the Ralph Lauren shirt, except the polo player would be holding up a Bible instead of a mallet.

You always hear people say that they tease someone they like and that has never been more true than in the case of Bill Wade. If he didn't like you, he would leave you alone. However, if he did, he would tease and kid you.

He called me "Poo". (A long story) Not "P-O-O-H" like Winnie the, but P-O-O, like....When our son was dating our daughter in law, she asked him why he called his dad "Poo".  He gave a two word answer: Bill Wade

One thing he could do was the "put on".  He could say the most outlandish things but with such sincerity that you sort of believed him. Then you would see him grin and you knew you were had one more time by Bill Wade. He used to tell people that the dorm we lived in had a swimming pool. (Bill had a thing about pools)

One thing about Bill: he loved dogs. He adored "Preacher" and all of the dogs they've had. (Preacher was a rescue and Bill was his human. To watch Preacher during this time was heart breaking. He knew something was wrong, but he didn't know what. He thought, "Maybe if I sit as close to Bill as possible, he'll feel better.  After Bill died, Preacher was looking for him, holding out hope that Bill would come back.) However,  he wasn't fond cats.  He called Dianne's cat Lillie Bell "Lillie Hell".

Lori and I had a cat named Gracie. Gracie and Bill were enemies. Gracie used to swat at Bill. We had Gracie for a long, long time. She lived to be almost 22 years old.  When Gracie died, I called Bill and told him we had Gracie put down. Bill's response:  "Do you want another cat?  You can have Lillie Hell!  You'd be doing both of us a favor! I can put her in the mail tomorrow!" When I told him he can't mail a cat through the US Postal service, he told me he would poke holes in the box.

One day, Bill got his.  In the department Bill worked in at Lifeway, everybody shared an admin. One day Bill was talking to this lady and he went into his "I hate cats" routine.   The lady bursts out into tears. She explained her and her husband never had any children and her cats were her babies. Now, Bill would never set out to be insensitive to anyone   He told me, "I wasn't trying to hurt her feelings, I just hate cats".  I just said, "Some people can't take a joke".  Bill said, "Oh, I wasn't joking."

Bill was my best man when I married Lori. He and Di accepted Lori just as they accepted me. We would go to see Bill and Di on our vacations I think we've seen just about every house they've lived in. One of our favorite memories is arriving at Bill and Di's and just sitting around the kitchen table eating chocolate chip cookie dough

We had a lot of adventures with Bill and Di.

One time, we met them in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One day after doing Gatlinburg stuff (walking around), we went to Ruby Tuesday for supper. We are walking upstairs to our table when a guy comes barrelling down the stairs. He's shorter than me, has a scraggly beard and is wearing a "Beaucephus" t-shirt.(Note Young People: Beaucephus was the nickname of country singer Hank Williams, Jr.  Hank, Jr was real popular back then and he has some pretty good songs. Like "I Like Girls" in which he says, "I like them small, I like them tall, I like them all" ) He looks straight at Bill and says, "Hey,y'all wanna come drankin' with me?"  Bill said, "No, we haven't seen each other for a while and we want to visit. But thank you for the invitation". I often wonder about that poor guy, who just wanted to go "drankin"  and the person he asks is an ordained Baptist minister.

Bill was also a great practical joker.  One time, he and Joey were coming to our house. The Braves were in the World Series for first time in forever and he wanted to look at all of the neat merchandise. We were standing outside our house when we saw Bill's truck coming down the street. He drove right past the house. Then he drove back-right past the house.  He did this several times and soon we were waving our hands yelling "Bill, Bill, right here!" This went on for several minutes before he drove up in the driveway.

My mother said Bill and I reminder her of the old cartoon strip Mutt and Jeff.  Even though we did not share similar heights, we did have a lot in common.   We were both suburb kids with hard working parents. We both shared a faith in Christ. We both had good taste in women. 

We both had similar tastes in music. Over the years, I can count on one hand the number of people who had same taste in music that I have.  Bill is one of them. He liked Jimmy Buffett and explained to me the meaning behind the song "Life Is A Tire Swing".  (For the record, he also explained the song "Dallas" to me. Both are on Buffett's "A1A" album, the best Jimmy Buffett album) Once, we went to see the Wades when they lived in Mississippi, Bill pointed to a tire swing he put up for the kids. "Life is just a tire swing, Poo", he said. 

He was also a big fan of John Prine.  We spent a lot of time talking about John Prine.  When he came to Bowling Green and Living Hope, Bill told me that he was near Muhlenburg County. The last time we were up here, I asked Bill to take me to Muhlenburg County. He did and I saw the Green River where Paradise lay. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was to me 

I could go on and on about Bill.  And I will. If anyone ever asks me about him, I will tell them that he is the best person I ever known in the my life.  I was thrilled to see Senator Paul stop by Bill's house to give him what was placed in The Congressional Record.  It was very deserved.

Bill was a great listener. Whenever we were confronted with a situation, Lori always told me to call Bill Wade, I would, and he always gave me good advice. Recently, we've asked ourselves more than once "who are we going to call for advice? Because everyone we know is stupid".  It speaks well of Living Hope that you saw this talent and allowed him to open the counseling center.

With the exceptions of my wife, son, and parents nobody has loved me more unconditionally than Bill Wade. Like you, there's a six foot six hole in my heart.

We all have an expiration date. I just didn't expect Bill's to be so soon. However, these past few months have taught me that God's will, while perfect, is not painless.  Even though it has been painful, Bill's response was joyful. When our time comes, may we meet it with the same grace and dignity as Bill Wade.

Even though I am very sad, it does bring me great joy to say that I was a friend of Bill's and he was a friend of mine.  I will never forget him.

What can I tell you about Bill Wade?  He was the best. The best son. The best brother The best husband. The best father. The best uncle. The best staff member. The best counselor. The best friend.

 

 

About Bill

 

The following are my remarks at The Celebration of Life service for Bill Wade given at Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky on October 16, 2022.  I will have some parenthetical notes. 

Please be aware that this was given as an eulogy for my close friend. 

There were six other men speaking (one was the police chief of Bowling Green, Kentucky) and I was asked to limit my remarks to six or seven minutes.  

Bill asked me to be a participate in the service when he learned he had Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer that had metastasized  to his liver and lymph nodes.  

For a couple of months, I had been working on my remarks and had around 3100 words.  I googled to see how many words a seven minute speech has: 1050 words.  Next week, I will publish a fuller tribute to the best person to ever come out of Pearl, Mississippi. 

 

Before I begin, allow me a moment to tell you how honored I am to speak to you about a subject I know well:  Bill Wade. We’ve known each other for about forty-four years.  (Originally, I had written that we had an understanding that we would each speak at the other's service depending on which one went first.  I left it out and ad-libed something that I had forty years of stories because it flowed better with what I said next.)

Shortly after my wife, Lori and I were married, we took a trip to Pearl, Mississippi to see the Wades:  Bill, Dianne, Toddler Joey, and Baby Katy.

When Sunday came around, Lori and I decided to skip Sunday School and just go to the worship service at the First Baptist where Bill was on staff.

We got to the church just as the service was starting. Bill was behind the pulpit giving the weekly announcements.  Being the good Christians we are, we found a seat near the back.  Then I heard Bill say, “I would like my college roommate, Alan Manis, visiting here from Georgia to give our opening prayer”.  Oh yeah, Bill hadn’t said a thing to me about the opening prayer.

It wasn’t the first time Bill pulled a prank on me and wouldn't be the last.

I must admit I gave a pretty awesome opening prayer. (No brag, just fact) After the service was over, a lady came up to me and said, “So, you were Bill Wade’s college roommate”. I said “Yes, ma’am”. She said, “Why, bless your heart”, which in Mississippi can have several connotations.

Well, I am blessed to have been a friend of Bill’s for all these years.

I’ve seen Bill though all of the churches he served and Living Hope was one of his favorites.  I can see why. The way you have supported Bill and Dianne in this extremely trying time has been tremendous. Both Bill and Dianne felt blessed by the response of Living Hope.

Twenty some odd years ago, Bill used me as a reference for a para-church ministry he wanted to do part time.  The man at the ministry called me.  He asked "What can you tell me about Bill Wade?"  I said, "He drove three and a half hours to help me move six miles."

To me, that sums up Bill Wade. He would always go out of his way to help somebody. But there's more I would like to add. (Bill was a real life Genie from Disney's "Aladdin". He was always in the mood to help you, dude.)

Bill Wade was real.  Bill was six foot and six inches of total Bill-ness. What you saw was what you got. There wasn't a pretentious bone in his body.  When he wasn't joking around (which wasn't very often) he said what he meant and meant what he said. Because of this, Bill had little use for phony people.

Bill's faith was not shallow.  It was deep, firmly held.  He knew what he believed and why he believed it.  You can’t coach that. And you saw that this summer.

I'm from Marietta, Georgia and I grew up with a lot of people whose fathers were engineers at Lockheed and became engineers themselves. So, I’ve known many smart people. I can honestly say Bill was one of the smartest.  On top of that, Bill was blessed with common sense which made him a very wise person.

I met Bill Wade in college. Bill considered college a challenge-a challenge to see if he could outwit the professors and he usually did.  For example, on the first day of class,  he would check the syllabus when it was handed out to see how many classes you could miss before it effected your grade.  Bill called those "free days" because he said you didn't pay for them

I don't know what Bill's IQ was, but his emotional intelligence was off the charts. Bill could empathize with people and see where they “were coming from”

It goes without saying, but Bill was as smitten with Dianne in 2022 as he was when he met her in 1976. I’ve talked with Bill a lot over the years and I’ve never heard him say a bad thing about her.   He forgot all about other girls when he met Dianne.

You can’t talk about Bill Wade without mentioning his sense of humor. If you spent an hour with Bill, you were guaranteed to have at least one belly laugh. He was very witty and truth be told, could be a little “smart” as my mother would say  Once, a guy saw Bill’s pictures of Dianne on his desk. He had a lot of pictures, sort of like a shrine. The guy looked at the pictures and asked, “Is this your fiancé?”  Bill said, “No, she is my sister. We are very close.” (If Bill had just added, "And here's your sign", he would have been a millionaire.)

Bill would also make up parody songs like “Weird Al” Yankovich.  He came up with a song called “Jello” based on the Lionel Ritchie song “Hello” which had this line: “Jello, is it me you wiggle for?” Several years later, I was flipping through a MAD magazine and they a section titled “Songs We’d Like To Hear”.  “Jello” was one of them. Bill was ahead of his time. (I swear this is true.)

He loved “Veggie Tales” and made up his own Veggie: "Opie Okra”. His song contained the line: “Stomach Punch, lose your lunch, hurts a bunch. Opie Okra”. When my son was 7 years old he loved the Opie Okra song and can still sing it today, word for word, as a 31 year old. (My son, Ben, sent Bill a video singing the "Opie Okra" song. Bill thought it was great.)

You may find this hard to believe, but when I was single I wasn’t too successful with the ladies. Something about being a short, near-sighted guy with no money didn’t attract a lot of attention. But the Lord had mercy on me and Lori Stanley took pity on me. When we became serious, I called Bill to tell him the good news. He said, “Alan, is this a real girl or did you just make it up?”

Bill and Di accepted Lori just as they accepted me.  We’ve been to just about everyone of their houses. We’d roll up to the Wade’s house, sit around and talk, and eat chocolate chip cookie dough. We had a lot of adventures with the Wades: movies, plays, hockey games, and a six mile hike with a belly full of “Slick Pig” BBQ wings just to name a few.

Bill Wade was a humble man.  This is remarkable because he was in a profession where “humility” is not the first word you think of when you meet some of these guys. (I wasn't trying to Evangelical clergy bash because that's like shooting fish in a barrel. However, some of them, even the really good ones aren't very humble.)   He would be “blown away” by the response of the past few weeks because he didn’t start your pregnancy center, your counseling center, and work as a police chaplain to have his name entered into the Congressional Record. He just did it because he was Bill.

Bill Wade was the best friend I could ever have. He did more for me than I could ever repay.  I miss him terribly and I think of him often especially when I hear a train in the distance. (Bill was a train fanatic. His grandfather worked on the railroad and I think Bill really saw himself as a train man. I talked to him about taking a train trip to celebrate my retirement when I retire.  Life has a way changing plans.)

 

 

 

 

 

This Week's Picks Week Six

Just a quick opening.  I didn't post  This Week's Picks last week because my college roommate and all around best bud died last week and I was really bummed.  

It wasn't a surprise.  We've known since June that this day was coming. He had Pancreatic Cancer, stage four and it metastasized into his liver.  Pancreatic Cancer is one of those cancers they don't have a screening for and it is usually not found until it was too late.  And it was found too late for him

I just didn't want to talk about football

I used to talk to him about college football a lot.  His mom went to LSU and his sisters went to Southern Miss. He went for a job prospect in Fort Collins, Colorado and while they have Colorado State there, he said he didn't think he could live without the SEC.

The last time a saw him, we sat and watched some college football. It was the Saturday Alabama almost lost and App State beat Texas A&M. It was a good Saturday afternoon.

This Week's Picks

 

 

Jawja vs The WarTigers:  Well. There's no denying that while UGA still has a perfect record, they haven't looked very impressive in the past two weeks.  The almost lost to Missouri and while any team can beat any other team on any given Saturday, it shouldn't have been this close. In fact, you could almost hear the phone calls on "Dawg Talk".  "I'm gonna be the furst won to say it. Kerbee's gotta go. I'm gonna hang up and listen to yer answer."  Anyway, the Dawgs are playing Auburn Saturday and Auburn is a combination reality show-soap opera.  Dawgs win. 

 

 

 

Wrecked vs Dookie.   Lookie  here.  Tech won a game last week and they beat a pretty good team. Duke is 3-1 if that means anything. It doesn't.  I hate to do this, Bees, because y'all were doing so well. Tech wins.

 

 

 

Only Ten I See vs Ellesyou: This has the makings of a pretty good game. Tennessee, while not at the glory years level, doesn't stink.  LSU is trying to forget Coach O and the mess he left behind. The good people in Red Stick will like Coach Kelly if though he is not Cajun and doesn't know his boudin from a whole in the ground if he wins.  LSU wins 

Bamy vs Aggies:  You might remember Coach Satan and Coach Jimbobo had a spat about the NIL (Name-Image-Likeness) which means players can be paid. Jimbobo signed a bunch of 12 star athletes  while Satan signed a bunch of 12 star athletes and Satan thinks that Alabama is the only school that should sign all the good ones. The problem for A&M is that Alabama has a system and Jimbobo doesn't. Right now, Bama is the best team in College Football, again,  Bama wins

 

 

Ben-Ben's School vs My Cousin's School  One of the things I learned when my son matriculated at Georgia Southern is that Georgia Southern and Georgia State hate each other because they share the same initials: GSU. This one's for you, Ben-Ben.  Georgia Southern wins.

 

 

My Beloved Owls vs North Bama:  My beloved Owls are 1-3 and North Alabama is 1-3.  I'm not prejudice. Okay, just a little.  Owls win.