I got the Willies

by Dave Williams

I heard a guy on the radio this morning waxing nostalgic about the time he met his childhood hero, Bart Starr. At that point he employed a clever trick we radio talkers carry in our toolbox, asking rhetorically, “Did you ever have a chance to talk with your idol?”

It’s what we call a hook. It engages the listener. We get you personally involved in a topic. This is called active rather than passive listening. It works every time, even on me.

I’ve told these stories here before but hell, I’ve been telling one of them for about 60 years, the other for 32. Why stop now? They still haunt me.

I met Willie Mays when I was ten or twelve years old. For reasons I still don’t understand a security guard protecting the San Francisco Giants players’ parking lot from a rowdy crowd of kids waving pens and gloves opened his gate just wide enough to admit me, and me alone, into the autograph promised land. The other several dozen kids were left clamoring at the chainlink barrier like starving waifs in a Dickens novel.

This was my golden ticket, even before Willie Wonka was created.

When my hero emerged from the locker room door my heart started pounding and my mouth went dry. I walked toward him calmly, on rubber legs; I politely raised my baseball glove and pen to his world-famous face and muscular shoulders, forcing my thick, parched tongue to stammer, “Mr. Mays, can I have your autograph?”

Willie kept walking. He didn’t slow down, look at me, smile, or shoo me away.

He made me doubt my own existence.

Willie got in his car, I went back to my dad and we started the sad two-plus hours drive home.

Willie Nelson was much nicer. He smiled and nodded as I looked at him dumbly. I mean that in the literal definition of the word, I was struck dumb, so enamored by his presence that I was unable to utter a word.

I was no kid at this point. I was 38, host of the highest-rated morning radio show in Sacramento history, but at that moment I was dumb as a fencepost.

CarolAnn bailed me out, as she often still does in social settings. She smiled sweetly at Willie, fluttered those gorgeous eyes, and asked him to sign our ticket stubs. He did so with a charmed (and may I suggest, slightly lecherous) smile.

As I chewed on my tongue to reduce it to a usable size, my wife turned radio producer, asking Willie if he could find a few minutes to talk with me on the air the following morning by phone. He kindly explained that he’d love to but he would be sleeping in his bus hundreds of miles away on the road to Utah. He might not even have a cell phone connection.

Then the Red-Headed Stranger smiled again and tipped his hat to the love of my life, giving me a quick, curious glance as he left.

“Radio show?” he thought, “The guy can’t even talk.”

 

“Well, hello there. It’s been a long time.”

by Dave Williams
April 30, 2020

Willie Nelson turned 87 yesterday. I’ll turn 69 in August.

I’m too old for heroes, I suppose.

I’ve met a lot of very famous and admirable people but aside from my dad I’ve only had two heroes, Willie Mays was my first. That was 60 years ago.

“It’s been so long now, but it seems now it was only yesterday.”

Heroes are always bigger in persona than in person. Their legend precedes them. When you meet them in real life they can be disappointingly ordinary.

“Gee ain’t funny, how time just slips away.”

Willie Nelson did not disappoint. He was short and sweet and purely ordinary Willie.

I was starstruck, literally speechless. Carolann had to do my talking for me. I said not a word.

“How’m I doin’? Oh, I guess that I’m doin’ fine.”

My wife asked Willie if he’d be willing to talk with me on the phone the next morning on my radio show.

(“Radio show?”  I heard Willie think. “This guy can’t even talk.”)

Willie bailed us both out. He told her he’d be sleeping in the back of his bus headed for Colorado when I was on the air. He was so nice. He smiled at me like Willie Nelson.

“I gotta go now. I guess I’ll see you around.”

Willie seems immortal but every year at the end of April I get worried. I don’t want to lose him.

And I don’t want to go, either.

“And it’s surprisin’, how time just slips away.”

 

© Dave Williams 2020
Funny How Time Slips Away © Willie Nelson 1961

 

Willie Nelson, CarolAnn and me

“If America could sing with one voice it would be Willie’s.”
– Emmylou Harris

When I met Willie in person I froze. I literally couldn’t open my mouth to speak.

It was in the late 1980s in the Dan Russell Rodeo Arena in Folsom, California. When Willie finished his last song he did something that blew our minds: He put down his guitar, stepped down from the stage and walked through the dirt in the arena right into the crowd of his worshipers wearing that famous crinkly-eyes, half-crooked smile.

He stayed out there, signed autographs and chatted with folks until we all finally dragged ourselves back to our cars for the happy drive home.

I don’t remember if I shook his hand but I think not. I just stood stupidly next to my hero while my wife asked him to autograph our tickets, which he did. Then she asked Willie if I could phone him the next morning for a short live interview on my radio show. I’m sure his first thought was, “Radio? This guy can’t even speak.” He didn’t say that, of course. He smiled and nicely explained that he’d like to but his bus would be hitting the road as soon as he got back in it.

(This was in the early days of cell phones, once you got out of town you could forget about talking to anyone. He’d be long gone by tomorrow.)

You may understandably wonder why I’m not posting a picture of Willie, CarolAnn and me. That would be very cool. I took a whole roll of film (late 1980s, remember) of him onstage because we were in the fourth row, center! Unfortunately, the film wasn’t properly engaged in the take-up reel. Not a single picture was recorded. I’m still kicking myself over that.

I was beyond thrilled to meet him. I never said a word. I literally couldn’t find my voice and I don’t regret it. I stood beside him for a few minutes while he chatted with my wife. I’m pretty sure that’s about as much live interaction with Willie Nelson that I could handle.

I was happy.

I’ve seen Willie and his family four times, I think.

He’ll turn 85 next week and I need to see him again before the time slips away.