Dear Sunny and Alex and Serena,
This is a small part of a chronologically gifted (old) man’s memory of a friend of mine, Bill Jacox. Some of the dates and facts may be a little off, but that’s because when you get older, the second thing that fails you is your memory…..( What’s the first? you ask. I answer: I forget…. ) But the impression of Bill on me is a true imprint.
I “met” Bill on the telephone in the summer of 2005, sometime around a wedding….before or after, not sure. He had received a request for a “teambuilding” program from I believe San Clemente High School, for their teaching staff. Bill was in charge of the newly built Challenge Course at UC Irvine, and these folks wanted an event for about 150 staff to begin their year, and they only had a half day to do it, and had big goals and topics they wanted to address, and the logistics and expectations made it a ridiculous request. This happens often in the experiential education realm. This was an important request for Bill who was just beginning to market and develop the program at UC Irvine. So in spite of the absurdity of the “ask” he did what adventure folks often do, he said “yes” and then tried to figure out how to follow the hat he had just thrown over the fence. Sounds like a familiar behavior?
He called Tom Leahy, a respected colleague in Colorado, and asked for help. ( This is a good practice to learn in life- call on folks to help you out with important stuff….or any stuff. It runs against our american cultural norms, but it has been proven to increase chances of survival in dire situations, so try to make it a habit.) Tom, having received many of these requests in his work and shaking his head in recognition, wasn’t able to get near this project, but he knew an old delusional duffer that had recently moved to SoCal and was looking for impossible work. That was me. So Bill called me and explained the situation, said he could only pay me within the University guidelines which were restrictive, and I tossed my hat over the fence and said I was “in”. Why not?
Besides the logistics of too many people and not enough time and too big an agenda, Bill and I came up with a design that included issues of valuing people and bullying stuff and who gets picked for what and how do we represent each other and vulnerability in front of others and support and the possibility of fun and risks at the same time. It was an ambitious event, and we had never tried this design before. We did this all over the phone and email, having never seen each other in person. Some things take a leap of faith.
So the day before the event I drove down from Davis CA, and met Bill at UCI and toured the course and then went back to his apartment where I met Sunny. I recollect that I “slept” on the couch. We got up early the next day and headed for the circus that was about to be. After the course setup and briefing with the other staff for the day, we stood together as the mob approached. “Too late to go back now”, and we grinned…adventure happens.
What I hold onto the most from that day was the trust that Bill put in us, and me. He didn’t really “know” me, and we were mostly doing activities I had made up, and had little experience with. Yet somewhere within his heart and gut and mind he was willing to trust it, and go for it. That’s the kind of connection that’s worth holding onto. He and I once had an intriguing conversation about whether trust is more given or more earned in life…it was the kind of exchange he thrived on….That he eventually came to think of me as a mentor was an honor for me
That winter (february 2006) we were together for a workshop presented by Tom Leahy, hosted in San Juan Capistrano by Andi Burgis, and there was a time of exchange of ideas that was stimulating and entertaining. And there was a dinner hosted by Bill and Sunny introducing Tom and his wife Jen and me to the community building food adventure of Pho. Awesome memory.
In the spring of 2006 I was still in Davis California, looking for work and a place to be. Bill and I were at the Western Regional Association for Experiential Education in El Capitan. Bill told me that there was a Challenge Course job open at UCLA and encouraged me to go for it. I did, and Bill’s reference was a major part of why they gave me the opportunity. At a low point in my life on a number of levels, he helped me get the foothold I needed. Climbing from there was due to his aid. A debt I owe him that he was not interested in collecting. Bill gave stuff without expectation of return, only interested in the treasure that the recipient found in the gift.
Through the next few years before he left Irvine we did a number of collaborations on various Challenge Courses in SoCal where it really didn’t matter the “client” or the employer, we were just looking for the opportunity to share doing “ the work” together. Those were good times in great company.
Bill loved metaphor. We more than once used the concept that people are like carabiners… ( this is an idea that only started to have understanding to Sunny after she met this guy and his “toys”) By themselves, they have little use…just a piece of alloy or metal that you can use as a paperweight or whatever as a small piece of mass. Their worth and importance and relevance is in the arena of connection ….they save and preserve lives and more when they are used to connect people and stuff. They are incredibly strong when pulled in the right directions, and surprisingly strong when pulled in the wrong ones. And they can only perform their function if they go to their weakest shape, when they are open….. and willing to accept the gear and load and responsibility of connection. People are like that too.
Bill had awesome facial expression. Oh yes, in “our profession” he had that great neutral yet interested look of the facilitator mastered. And when he was in laughter, he was really in it for the enjoyment. However my favorite was his unique look when he was listening to someone/something he couldn’t quite believe was being put into the space. He would slightly cock his head, and the eyebrows would move a little, and there would be a slight tug at the edges of his mouth. It was a look of mild incredulity and wonder, without judgement or criticism, and the little bubble that would appear over his head would read: “are you actually saying that? Really?”
Bill loved family, even before it was fully formed for him, and even in the balance of work he loved. I spent a bunch of effort convincing Bill to attend the National Challenge Course Practitioner’s Symposium, the “Unconference”, in Boulder Colorado hosted by Tom Leahy. He finally showed up, and appreciated the community that gets built at that event. And in the final “sounding” of participants there he let it be known that his big take away was that this was a work event that he would want to bring his family with him to attend.
Bill loved Ice Cream ( capitol letters for sure) and characters that used their work as a vehicle for their purpose. I can’t place it for sure where or when it was, but I remember us licking on substance when the topic came up that as a Vermonter ( which I was for 25 years), where everybody knows everybody, I was acquainted with Ben and Jerry….and we shared about making ice cream and social justice at the same time….how awesome was that.
Which brings me to the final notes of this text. Bill knew that living work and play was integral, not separate. As an insufferable literature major, I am reminded of a poem that was my father’s favorite, that I believe Bill embodied. My request is that you read the final stanza a second time, imagining Bill using it as a reading on an adventure , with Bill in you heart and mind and soul…..
I write this all in appreciation of your love and remembrance of this good man, your partner and father and husband.
With prayers and blessings,
Bills’s friend,
Brian Pritchard, aka Waldo
Two Tramps in Mud Time
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily “Hit them hard!”
I knew pretty well why he dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.
Good blocks of beech it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And fronts the wind to unruffle a plume
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake: and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.
The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheel rut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.
The time when most I loved my task
These two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You’d think I never had felt before
The weight of an axhead poised aloft,
The grip on earth of outspread feet.
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.
Out of the woods two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps.)
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax,
They had no way of knowing a fool.
Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right — agreed.
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future’s sakes.
