The Man from Glad

For once, I'm not going to write something sad about a fellow high school classmate.

I'm going to write about Bill Borden, who turns 43 today. This is an excerpt from my book, "Generations," a book about my family that, hopefully, you'll see on the bookshelves (will there be bookshelves?) in a few years:

The person who really saved me, at least during my teenage years, was Bill Borden. He showed up at my house, in Point Pleasant, in 1984, wanting to go the beach. Something about that visit made him my best friend, forever, because he never did stop showing up at my house, unannounced, ready to have fun. I saw him as my strongest confidant, and even a savior.

We had known each other before, and we had worked together, too. But from then on, we were best friends. I learned more from Bill than anybody. I marveled at his ability to smile his way through problems. I was struck by his ability to just go up to people, almost randomly, and start talking to them. I was amazed at how little he would say, but he could somehow carry on a conversation with anybody – particularly women – for hours.

I was always too shy and cynical to be social. I felt insecure about the way I looked. I felt embarrassed about my family. Bill had a similar background, but he didn’t care about any of that. He was a slender, but strong kid who talked slowly and had an awkward, but honest and even charming way about him. He was a smart guy who did some silly things. Once, he read a dense geopolitical book from Ayn Rand in one day. Other times, he'll shave or shower right after a late-night party. I can always imagine him saying to those who question him about it, “I have to get clean. I have to go to work next morning."

Bill’s mission was to have fun, to smile and to live a good life. Bill had no lofty expectations for himself; he just wanted to work hard and go to bed, and then wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

Bill's family had problems, too, the kind of problems every family has. He always found a positive way to look at things, and he always believed there was a solution to everything, even when everything seemed to be falling apart.

With Bill, I learned how to keep friends. I was too embarrassed by my own family life to invite them over, and have them bear witness to my mother getting one more “will you love me forever and ever?” out my father. I didn't want them to see her limp, and I certainly didn't want them to eat her food. But Bill didn't care. When he showed up at my door, during the summer of 1984, he just walked in and talked. He stayed for a good hour, talking to my mother and father, letting a warm, sunny day go by. He even had a sandwich, one that contained my mother’s thick, grisly meat loaf, and swallowed it nearly whole before finally we got on our bikes and headed for the beach. He built a bond that day with my parents and, as a result, with myself that would never go away.

With Bill, I felt like I finally had an equal. I no longer had to stand in the shadow of my family. I no longer had to depend on people who viewed life as a chore. When we were intense, he would be laid back. When we'd rush, he'd be methodical. When something upset us, Bill would brush it off. The more he came to my house, the more his attitude seemed to rub off on the others.

He made my mother laugh as hard as anybody. She seemed to be comfortable with him, too, and she even asked him some probing, personal questions. “Are you still dating Diane?” my mother would ask, and he Bill would then break down the history of the relationship before getting to the point.

Bill sometimes offers non sequiturs that would leave all of us hunched over, and laughing, largely because he misheard or misinterpreted something we said.

“So what you doing tonight?” she once asked Bill while sitting in the kitchen, a tall glass of beer and a bag of potato chips sitting in front of her.

“No thanks – I just had steak,” Bill replied.

My mother laughed for a long time, and didn’t get close to her beer for nearly a half-hour. For many years, she still talked about that exchange, and repeated it over and over, like it was the funniest thing she ever heard.