Post date: Nov 16, 2013 8:49:49 PM
Yesterday I went to a memorial service for one of the best friends I ever knew, Tracy by god Wilson. One of the obvious things about Tracy was his physical condition and how quickly one overlooked it because of the strength of his personality. Tracy by god Wilson had one arm, one leg, was blind in one eye and deaf in one ear. His physical setbacks happened fairly early in his life. He had broken in as a high rigger of electric lines when he made a wrong move one day and received I don't know how many volts and just barely survived the experience losing every thing on his right side in the process.
His long trail back from that accident did a lot to make him the man he was. Tracy was born and raised in Texas and there was a lot of Texas in his personality and his speech. He was a handsome fellow and it was really unbelievable how he affected women. Tracy had fourteen children with five different wives but was an active bachelor most of the time I knew him. I lost two very comely women friends to him and I came up with the explanation that was widely accepted in Troy that he had a huge heart pumping a massive volume of blood through a body missing two of his limbs so where do you think all that blood is going to go?
The last time I saw him he was going to go down to Texas to see his mother and many of his children and he knew the end was near. He had fought cancer caused by the electrocution several times in his life and it had returned and settled in his lungs. I made him promise me that he was going to come back to Troy but it was a promise he could not keep but he died in the house he was raised in surrounded by all his children and their children.
His beautiful daughter Heidi ran the show at the memorial and did a very good job. My friends and former band partners Allan Lane and Frank Chiaverini played music and everyone got up and told their stories about Tracy and I the by gawd poet laureate of Troy read a poem I wrote last week to a good hearing. With the river behind me at the new park and bandstand I motioned to the river as I exclaimed that Tracy had a smile so wide this river could run through it. When I finished the poem I handed It to Heidi the only copy in existence, and we let go of her father,Tracy by god Wilson.
POSTED BY THE WALLNETTO AT 4:43 PM