heroes Archives : The Aging of Aquarius

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.”

God bless you, Tom Hanks

By Dave Williams

My youngest grandson called last evening. He was so excited and so am I.

Tyler Williams has achieved a thrill that eluded me when I was his age; his hero has made amends for mine.

Here’s the story:

A few nights ago my son and daughter-in-law took their son, Tyler, to see a production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV starring Tom Hanks. Though he’s only 13 Tyler loves Tom Hanks. He told me he’s been a big fan of Tom Hanks his entire life!

Well… since he was three.

While looking around before the show a stagehand apparently asked him if he was a Shakespeare fan, or words to that effect, and Tyler said yes, but mostly he’s a Tom Hanks fan.

The guy said maybe he could arrange for Tyler to meet Tom Hanks after the show. You can’t imagine how excited my grandson was.

And you also can’t imagine how disappointed he was when the show ended and they couldn’t find that stagehand. Tyler and his parents headed toward the parking lot but then the miracle happened:

A large, black SUV pulled up alongside my family. The driver rolled down the window and said, “Hey, Kid! Did you like the show?”

Tom Hanks had found him.

Tyler was over the moon!

They talked for a few minutes. Tyler told his superstar hero that he, too, was an actor. Tom told him to keep practicing and offered some funny suggestions about how to enunciate properly.

A personal autograph followed and then, a big hug.

Tyler will be walking on that cloud his entire life. And how much time did it take Tom Hanks to give a kid a thrill and maybe some lifelong inspiration?

Five minutes, maybe.

When I was about Tyler’s age I had a chance to talk to my hero, too. I was the only kid there when Willie Mays left the San Francisco Giants clubhouse following a game.

“Mr. Mays,” I stammered breathlessly, “will you sign my glove?”

I looked at him as if he was a god. But he didn’t look at me, not even a glance. He ignored me as if I didn’t exist. Without breaking stride he walked straight to his car.

It took me a lot of years to forgive Willie for my crushing disappointment. As I got older I did forgive him but I never forgot the pain of thinking my hero was not a nice man. It shattered my feelings for him.

But now, more than 50 years later Tom Hanks has made up for it.

I guess you could argue that I learned a valuable lesson that day so many years ago. Maybe. All I know is it hurt real bad and some of that stayed with me for decades.

Tyler will never feel that way.

God bless you, Tom Hanks.

Above is the program that Tom Hanks autographed for Tyler. Kinda hard to read here. It says, “Tyler, speak the speech. – T. Hanks” It’s a line from Hamlet in which Shakespeare tells actors to speak as real people do, not with florid exagerration as actors frequently do, especially while reciting his works. That’s my interpretation, at least. It is an amazing gift from a wonderful actor to a greatful young fan.