Good-Bye to a Friend.... So Long Bullwinkle

     Another indicator of the years going by is the number of friends that are dying off on me.. Just this past week I lost another one and I have been in somewhat of a funk since getting the news.
   After my thirty year career in Radio/TV broadcasting I wanted to find something to get me away from the rapes, murders, and violence of the news beat. I had driven my brother's race car all over the country in an enclosed trailer back in the 1970's, so I thought, why not trucking...and if you are going to drive a truck,..you might as well drive for the best.

      I started driving for Wal-Mart in 1997 but I did not get the job easily... I was an outside carrier for seventeen months before the opening became available. An outside carrier is when you are employed by another company but you pull only Wal-Mart trailers. About thirty Wal-Mart drivers signed a petition endorsing my application and the general transportation manager at the Palestine, Texas distribution center was impressed. I became one of the first drivers hired in almost four years at Palestine.
   One of the drivers that stood up for my hiring was Terry Williams, better known as Bullwinkle over the CB radio.

      Bullwinkle was a man who was willing to go the extra mile in his job, but also ready to lend a hand to anyone who needed assistance. He was a larger than life individual but always had an easy smile on his face. The driver pool at Palestine was around three hundred men and just about all knew Terry and had some good comment to pass along. Terry worked for Wal-Mart for twenty-two years and retired this past July. He was installing a dishwasher in his kitchen when he suffered a major stroke, dying about a week later.
    Did I mention that Terry was a car nut?.. He and his sons would rebuild old cars into like-new condition. Terry met me at a local cafe once during the late 1990's and he was driving a 1937 Chevrolet Coupe you would swear was brand new... BUT it had a late model running gear with a Chevrolet V8 under the hood. One of his last remodeling jobs was a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air with a fuel-injected engine. Guess what led the funeral procession from the church to the cemetery? 

            The immaculate detail of this vehicle tells you what a great mechanic Bullwinkle was. I retired from Wal-Mart in 2009 but a lot of former drivers who retired long before me showed up for the funeral, a display of just how much Terry was loved and respected. Wal-Mart has an army of drivers numbering over seven thousand,..but Terry was one of a kind..and he was my friend. So long Bullwinkle, and put in a good word for me with Saint Peter.