We were the sons of a father of girls, we Boy Scouts of Troop 336, we Shepherd’s Fold church kids, we school students who grew up wanting to be like “Mr. Bill.” He had a family of girls, but spent so much time with us boys that I often wondered if his daughters were jealous of us. We were certainly jealous of THEM, because we only got to spend time with Mr. Bill at Scout Meetings, at church, on campouts, at the dinner table (when the Reynolds’ visited the Barkers’ and vice-versa.) Now and then, he’d join us for a pickup ballgame at the home of his nephews (the McLarys.) But Beth, Rhonda, Cathy, Mary and Laurie were with him every day. It wasn’t fair. He lived with his daughters and only saw his ever-changing cast of sons a few times a week.
Fifty nine years ago—(the November that Kennedy was assassinated)—Mr. Bill played
a football game with some of his “boys.”
Bill Barker, Sunday School Superintendent/Youth
Leader/Scoutmaster/School Principal/Father Of Many Daughters was the
quarterback of one team of Shepherd's Fold men and boys. E.J. Reynolds, Pastor/My
Dad/Father Of Six, played linebacker for the opposition.
Willie and Richie McLary, Wayne Jenkins, Rodney Jenkins, myself,
some Keatings and Galloways and a few other neighborhood boys got the
game going going in the field next to the McLary House in the notorious Second
Ward of St. Tammany Parish, identified on maps as Pulltight, now called
Barker's Corner. Dad and Mr. Bill and a couple of other adults came out to play—an equal number of men joining each side.
My dad was good at every sport he ever tried and I was glad to
have him on my side. He had been a star ever since he first tossed a
basketball, swung a bat, or spiked a volleyball. E.J. Reynolds had a
competitive streak a mile wide and, minister or not, would do anything to win.
(He and I had some loud and aggressive arguments about things like
whether a badminton birdie was in bounds or out; Dad never gave an inch.
Neither did I. Luckily, the church had stashed us in a parsonage tucked
way back in the woods so our badminton and croquet and basketball screaming was
heard only by our own family and our nervous horses and chickens and dogs and
the surrounding wildlife of Semiloosa Swamp
This particular football game in the McLary portion of the Barker
compound in the fall of the year that JFK was killed was another chance
for my Dad to ride his competitive streak to a victory; for his star to shine;
for him to get that adrenalin rush—those endorphins—that make the human animal feel
great, but are so hard to trigger (for our kind of people) outside of
church.
Half a century later as my dad and I talked long-distance about bygone days, as we often did in his latter years, Dad said: “I thought I was a pretty good player.
Nobody was going to get past me. But ol' Bill got the ball and ran to my
side of the line and I went up to stop him and he just lowered his shoulder and
hit me in the chest, you know, to get by me, and I never felt anything that
hurt so bad. I ended up on the ground and I didn’t know if I was going to
be able to get up or not. Then he got the ball again, and I thought ‘I’ll
show him this time’ and he hit me again and I learned my lesson. That
Bill Barker was strong as a bull and I decided he could go whichever direction
he wanted to after that. I didn’t try to stop him again. When he came my
way, I just stepped aside and let him go.”
Mr. Bill was a giant. Maybe a little bigger than my 6’2”,
240 pound father, maybe not. But I remember him as a giant. And
then I see pictures and realize that he was bigger in my memory than he is in these pictures.
As our
Scoutmaster, Mr. Bill taught us all the things Boy Scouts are supposed to
know--how to tie knots, pitch a tent, cook on an open fire, send and receive
Morse code, save lives, be good citizens, do a good deed daily, Be Prepared....
the list is endless.
True to the Scout motto, Mr. Bill was always prepared: he made every task a game and every lesson a funny story... ‘though sometimes we misinterpreted the moral of the story:
During one of our mid-winter camp-outs, he told us about a dumb thing he had done as a kid--skinny-dipping in 30-degree weather. We said that was no big deal--anybody could do that. He told us to forget it--there'd be no swimming on this trip. A good Scout is obedient, but several members of Troop 336 were not good Scouts that night. As the fires burned low and the scoutmasters, Mr. Bill and Mr. Pete (Fussell) slept in their tents, Richie McLary, me and several whose names I don't recall, slipped out of camp, took off all our clothes and jumped into "336," the legendary swim- hole our troop had created the previous summer by clearing out logs, vines and underbrush and tying a rope in an overhanging tree.
We considered our challenge done two seconds after hitting the water. We had skinny-dipped in ice-cold water like Mr. Bill and proven we were MEN (above the waist anyway.) Mission accomplished, we scurried out of the water to put on our clothes and sneak back to camp before Mr. Bill caught us. But it was too late: Rodney Jenkins and Glenn Talley (good Scouts) had stolen our clothes and gone back to camp to wake up Mr. Bill.
Freezing wet, we crouched in the underbrush as Mr. Bill, in that booming voice of his, called our names and told us to come on in. In near-total darkness, we ran around in the woods, from tree to tree, bush to bush, trying to decide what to do. With our extremities in danger of freezing off, we finally decided on a frontal assault, broke cover and ran for our tents as other Scouts, fully clothed and sitting by a warm campfire, hooted, whistled and applauded. Mr. Bill pretended he didn't get a kick out of it. (Or maybe he wasn't pretending.) He didn't seem all that flattered that we had emulated him. We had broken the rules, so he sent us home to explain it to our parents.
(Mr. Bill knew
what would happen when we got home because parents in those days didn't take
kindly to their sons breaking the rules, any rules...but that's another
story.)
The last time I communicated with him—by e-mail—he said his mother had scolded him for sending us home that night and that he had always felt bad about it. So he apologized. 48 years later. Apologized. He didn’t need to, of course. It was nothing but a funny story to me; and my consequences at the time were well-deserved. But he apologized. I was surprised at the sensitivity of that gesture, but what surprised me most of all was big, hulking, giant, strong-as-a-bull, leader-of-everything, thirty-something Bill Barker being scolded by his old mother about how he handled his Scouts. Grammy Barker was one tough cookie. On the night of my high school graduation, Mr. Bill and his wife, the beautiful SeWilla took me and other seniors on our first cruise down
As my wedding day approached a few years after I'd left the Scouts, I wasn't sure whom to pick for Best Man. My mother said, "It should be your best friend." Which made the decision easy, if unorthodox: somewhat to his surprise, I chose Mr. Bill.
And one of the first things I did after I moved away was help organize a Boy Scout Troop.
And one of the first things I did after I moved away was help organize a Boy Scout Troop.
5/11/2012
You never think of giants and heroes dying, but one did today. R.I.P., Mr. Bill.
You never think of giants and heroes dying, but one did today. R.I.P., Mr. Bill.
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