I feel moved to add some personal stories to the fine summary by Marty. Bill was a true raconteur, we were always telling stories and remembering, and many memories have come flooding back. I met Bill in Leo Hendrick's Chaucer class at Olivet College in 1972. Leo made us memorize in Middle English, and Bill and I bonded as we marvelled at Leo's style and brilliance. We followed him out to Garfield Lake Tavern a lot. Bill could mimic Leo better than anyone, complete with the Harvard stutter, the dramatic pauses, and the grand coup de grace punch lines. 

Someone had yclept (Leo's word) Bill "The Bear", probably Tom Hendrick. Bill always showed amazing patience at Tom's ribbing, but once when I joined in, Bill called me out. He challenged me to a bike race from Lee Becker's place out on Ainger Road to the top of the hill in Olivet (George Hansen's house) and back again. Of course he blew me away, as Bill was a mighty strong man on a bicycle, as Marty recounts. And I learned something that day about what can happen when you put someone down. Karma is tough!

Bill visited me in Des Moines before he moved there to pursue his own graduate degree. On one visit he was sick in bed all day, but roused himself to join me for beer at the Doghouse Lounge. Someone there thought of himself as a beer chugger. A competition ensued, and Bill chugged several shells with no visible effect on his sobriety until the other guy quit and stumbled out the door. After I left Des Moines in '74, Bill settled in and helped start The Daily Planet newspaper, as Marty mentions. They eventually received a cease and desist order from the Superman franchise about using that name. Initially inclined to ignore it and tempt fate, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor and changed the name to simply The Planet.  Around that time Robin Williams was booked to do a show in Des Moines. He was famous from the Mork & Mindy Show, and one of the hottest names in comedy. The day of the show Bill got a call at The Planet from one of the promoters of the comedy show. An unwritten part of Robin William's contract was that some "blow" be provided in the Green Room for before and after the show. But they didn't have any! Bill made some calls. Just before showtime he delivered some dust in a baggie to the Green Room backstage, and handed it to Robin Williams.

Bill's love for the Bike Across Iowa tradition started in those days, and as Marty explains, it continued to be a huge part of his life. When Bill lived in Chicago and worked as an IT guy, my son Jacob and I would visit him every summer and go to White Sox and Cubs games. We sat in left field during the last season of Comiskey Park, and got to see Carleton Fisk finish his career there. We saw several Sammy Sosa homeruns at Wrigley Field, and Jacob learned the nuances of baseball as Bill taught him everything he could learn, game after game. Sometimes we drove together to Milwaukee to see a game with Tom Martinson at the old Milwaukee County Stadium. And then we would crash at Bill's place and he would share his homemade beer, always something new, and always excellent. Bill taught me a verse he remembered from a 1960's baseball preview article in Mad Magazine: "Tigers Tigers burning bright, In the ballparks of the night. Just when you think they're sittin' pretty, They lose three games to Kansas City!" I'm pleased that my son got a lot of his baseball education from Bill.

When we were together, it was the best of all talk. Stories, laughter, Olivet characters and memories, books, literature, poetry, Chaucer, Gildner, and baseball. Now that Bill is there, St. Peter is going to be listening and chuckling for a long time. Thank you for everything Bill!    Norm Wheeler