The right-hand man
Bill Whaley and I have a decades-long and delightful friendship. As one of the original designers of HorseFly, we have spent enormous amounts of time in each other’s company under extreme duress. But that pressure was always eased by a singular camaraderie, not unlike the friendships formed by soldiers in the trenches. It was a grand and often terrifying undertaking, as Taos is a tough town.
So our paths were forever overlapped in the most wondrous of ways, but in a field always strewn with either the joys – or heartaches – of living in our peculiar section of the untamed West.
We have laughed until we peed a little, and together shed tears at horrors most folk would never encounter while ensconced in the “America de los Gringos.”
He called me a couple of weeks ago a bit frantic. Seems the massive pond that I built for our mutual friends, the late Jules and Gene Sanchez, had lost power to the pump. Bill, tasked as the pond caretaker, was perched on the side armed with only a pet shop dip net, prepared to rescue every fish from the freezing waters. Once I stopped laughing at that visage, I told him, “No worries, they aren’t koi, they’re just goldfish and can freeze almost solid and will recover in the spring. Even if they die, I can replace them for about 10 bucks … “
Bill exclaimed, “Oh no you can’t, they’re GENO’S fish!”
My face flushed instantly with shame. I was suddenly and brutally reminded that Bill Whaley was a man you could toss the keys to the city or to a fish tank, and he would oversee the well-being of both with unwavering dedication and honor.
A “Titan of the Tiny,” he is the person we should all aspire to be if only there was enough room in the world for hearts that size.
Today my garden of grief is watered with tears from the beautiful heartache of ever having met such a man, much less the great fortune to call him my friend.
Wiz Allred
The cover of Whaley’s ‘Gringo Lessons, Twenty Years of Terror inTaos,’ with cover art by Nora Anthony.
Bill and I met when we first began teaching at UNM-Taos back in the early 1990s. We didn’t really say much to one another except for the occasional hi or gripe about our classes. This past Monday, on the morning of his passing, he came into my online office to get some help with this new mode of teaching. He was frustrated, but open to learning new tricks and getting the hang of it. He’d been doing very well with his new online course and I let him know and I also let him know that he wasn’t alone in struggling through this adventure we’re experiencing. He told me that made him feel much better.
After I’d answered a few of his questions, we started chatting about other things. For the next 45 minutes Bill shared with me stories of his life – from his studies in Las Vegas to his many adventures in and with the Taos community. He told me about the movies he used to show at the theater he owned, the long town meetings he would attend for his newspaper and the work he did for his books. He told me about his early studies in Greek, Latin and philosophy and the joy he had teaching through the UNM -Taos upper division program, holding classes at the Blumenschein Museum. He shared with me his frustrations over not having as many adult learners, but also spoke of the wonder he felt at the young students he had today – how easily they could adapt to this virtual world. We ended there – admiring our students and grateful that, despite the pandemic, they can still continue getting an education.
In the short time he spent with me, Bill managed to open up many wonderful windows of his life’s story for me to see. I’m honored and deeply touched that I was able to be in that office on that morning and, as a friend of mine shared, bear witness to his life’s review. What a wonderful life it was. Thank you, Bill, for letting me see into it for a brief moment.
Bill Whaley and Acequia Madre del Río Lucero y Arroyo Seco Commissioner Chris Pieper at an acequia headgate.