"There are men too gentle to live among the wolves..."

     My friend, Bill Sparks, died over the weekend.  I don’t know any details, except that he had been fighting cancer.  I think it was Pancreatic Cancer.

     I first met Bill when we started Lubbock High School in the fall of 1952, our sophomore year.  Bill and I became friends and, by the time we were seniors, we were inseparable.  We did all the things high school boys did back then---we played football, we hunted, we worked on cars, we double dated.  We talked about everything.  We shared our ambitions, our secrets, our plans, and our hopes.  We laughed long, loud, and often.

     When we graduated from LHS, Bill and I loaded his 1950 Ford  ”Business Coupe” with sleeping bags and camping paraphernalia and struck out on a great adventure to New Mexico and Colorado.   Bill went off to Texas A&M his freshman year, but returned to Texas Tech and we continued our friendship.  We roomed together for two summers as we worked in the oil fields of New Mexico.

     Bill was a big man and very serious-minded.  He had a deep, almost exaggerated sigh that he used when he was exasperated with friends or family members.  He used it a lot with his brother, Young Jim, and with me.  He was the softest-hearted person I have ever known and one of the kindest men who ever lived.  He and I drifted apart during the mid-college years.  I made some poor choices and Bill was disappointed, as any friend would have been.  We lost track of each other for a few years.

     I knew that Bill and Marilyn moved off to Tacoma, Washington, where he worked for Weyerhaeuser, I believe.  I think he set up that company’s computer systems.  Later, I heard that he was in Australia, working.  Then I heard he was retired in Southern California.

     A few years ago, Bill and Marilyn came to Fredericksburg to visit Jimmy Sparks, Bill’s younger brother.  Bill and I enthusiastically renewed our friendship.  We had a great visit, completely ignoring the fact it had been almost fifty years since we last spoke.  Bill and Marilyn moved to New Mexico, south of Santa Fe, and we saw them several times over a three year period before they moved back to California to be near their children.

     I sat alone on my front porch last night and thought about Bill.  I thought about his strength and the life he lived.  Out there in the dark, I was reminded of a poem that I read many years ago.  “There are men too gentle to live among the wolves...”  William Gilmer Sparks was like that.  He was a great friend and he will be missed.  The world is a lesser place today.