Today you get a VERY Special Post

On this day 15 years ago, the world lost a very special person. 15 years ago...that is is just crazy! If you know me well, you know I am referring to my dad. I don't think that there is a day that goes by that I don't think about him and miss him so much. I know the same goes for the rest of my family. 

Well, about five years ago I sent out an email to my family and some of his old friends. I wanted them to share their memories and favorite things about him. Guess what? I still have all those responses - and trust me there are a lot. Here goes:

• “Will you be my Valentine?” He would ask me this all year round! – Hailee
• “What can dad do to make it better?” That’s what he would say anytime you were having a bad day – Hailee
• The chow call – Hailee
• The beasty bomber – Hailee
• “How’s it going Bill?” –“I feel like a coyote shit me off a cliff!” – BJ
• I loved the way his hair stood up in the morning and when he was tired. – Mom
• I loved the shiny glare under his nose from the Vicks he wore. – Mom
• I loved his fear of electricity. – Mom
• I loved how he could only run in one direction for 14 ½ minutes. – Mom
• I loved the pride he had in his family (especially in his kids) – Mom
• I loved his quick sense of humor i.e. “He is so dumb that if you put his brain on the edge of a razor blade it would look like a pea rolling down a 5 lane highway!” – Mom
• I loved his tough exterior and his tender heart. – Mom
• “Hit the brakes” yelled at me from the brown bomber while towing the scout to the service station. – Russ
• “Electricity kills!!” – Russ
• “What’s that dogs name again, Fritzy?” He could never remember that the dogs name was Frisky – Russ
• “Oh yeah, if I lived during that time, I would move down the road to Charleston and open up a pub.” A comment made while watching the movie Scarlett Letter and the comment made by mom that he wouldn’t be able to live back then because they were too uptight. – Russ
• “Is that right?  Well, all I know is there is only one way to call somebody and asshole, and that’s too say, you’re an asshole!” Response when Mom said that the only people who swore were those who couldn’t think of anything better to say. – Russ
• “Dad loves you.” The last words he said to me the night before died when asking me to bring Danny home from Cedar to take the post office test.  – Russ
• “If you hit me and I find out about it…It’s gonna be you and me…All over the house.” – Danny
• “Damn it, Danny!” – Danny
• “Danny, run over to the Conoco and get me some coffee.” – Danny
• His broken bird finger – Danny
• “Long’s aren’t quitters.” – Danny
• He always woke me up to tell me goodnight after I had fallen asleep - Danny
• “Schultzie” our neighbor. – Danny
• Snaps – one of his favorite candies. – Danny
• I hit him in the head with a rock and he didn’t get mad.  I hit him in the nuts with an apple and he almost killed me. – Danny
• He faked us all out in Wal-Mart when he acted like his tooth hurt and then he busted up laughing. – Danny
• Running around in his tighty whities  - Danny
• He loved big steaks – Danny
• I saw him catch 2 fish at 1 time – Danny
• Trimming the trees in the backyard and hitting himself in the nuts with a branch. – Danny
• He kicked a hole through the grill of the brown bomber – Danny
• I heard him swear over the intercom at Murray – Danny
• “There’s gonna be 2 hits…me hittin you and you hittin the floor.” – Danny
• His stories of when he was in the Navy. – Danny
• He cracked up when Vern said “tomatoes”. – Danny
• Maa ress (Mattress) – Danny
• His golf swing – Danny
• He used armor all on his golf clubs and floor mats – Danny
• And last but not least THE NEW ROTIC SOUND!! “It’s Just Like Me” – Danny
• Trip to Cortez – BJ
• And I remember Tia asking me what I wanted for my birthday and he said “Get him a 12-pack.” – BJ
• “Make me some corn” – Hailee
• “I’ll have 10 Mc Nugget” – Russ
• “I’ll have one of those tasdodos”
• “Yah, I like smittles” (skittles) – Russ
• The golf club goose and the “whoooo” right when you were ready to hit the ball!! – Russ
• The lawn mower relaxation tape – Mom
• Him telling people that he didn’t really mow the lawn everyday….he took the blade off before he pushed the mower around.– Mom
• The car trips…”Danna tell those kids to be quiet!” – Mom
• The way he ate his cereal – slurp smack, smack, smack  - Hailee
• "Can I get over?....no, not now...Can I get over?...yes, get over now....Can I get over?...yes, get over now...Can I get over?  well, no not now!"   - Hailee
• When we would go on car trips and see how hard we could push the back of his seat before he would notice – Hailee
• Going fishing and the fun hunting trips – David
• Bill liked to take everyone to the best Chinese restaurant in the city and he always bragged about his kids – Malena
• Fishing at Merchant Valley – Tia
• Cutting Wood – Tia (or better yet when Tia and dad went cutting wood and she threw a log through the window then convinced him it was him so she wouldn’t get in trouble!! )
• Cookouts at Sand Island, or anywhere we went camping. (dutch oven potatoes and steak) – Tia
• His Cain story in a giant thunderstorm, when the power and mom were out. – Tia
• Not killing snakes because everything has a place in our ecosystem – Tia
• Vacuuming out his truck once a week just so I could pull it onto the lawn – Tia
• Running all the way downstairs so he could tell me goodnight, and by the way could you turn the light off? – Tia
• His crazy fear of vampires! – Tia
• Telling me “life was what you make it” when I was scared to go to college. – Tia
• Our family meetings that happened at the end of the school year, laying out what were supposed to be doing / not doing for the summer vacation – Tia
• Staying at the Shilo Inn, eating smoked oysters, clams, lays chips, and buttermilk! Wow, how stinky! – Tia
• Always asking me how school was going – Tia
• Eating fried spareribs from the Kowloon – Tia
• Seafood Gumbo and Benihana on the Camp Chef – Tia
• Endless trips to the gas station for a coke or coffee run – Tia
• Knocking on the drive up window at KFC – Tia
• “GIZZARDS” – Hailee
• One time I was helping him lift his camper shell off the truck and I asked him if it was heavy.  He said “No, I am used to lifting heavy things, like every time I take a leak!” – Russ
• “Shaking the grapes” – Russ
• “I’ve got a CA (chapped ass)” – Russ
• “I think I have cancer of the butt” – Russ
• “Grub, give us grub or we take horses and cows” – Russ
• “Why don’t you stand in the corner, on our head, and stack bb’s with your eyelashes?” – Russ
• “That’s like trying to pick a pimple out of an ants ass with boxing gloves on” – Russ
• He really believed in aliens, Bigfoot and conspiracies – Russ
• The infamous talks behind the trailer – Mom
• I remember the trip back from the Jordan River Temple when we had stopped at KFC for lunch.  Mom and I had lids on our drinks and a lid on the chicken.  Dad was drinking his drink with out the lid as he always did.  Well he got busy visiting and rear ended the truck in front of us. My drink went all over the dash, moms all over the back of the seat, the chicken spilled all over the floor but he did not spill a drop. - Russ
• I also remember him drinking a whole six pack of warm wild cherry diet pepsi on the drive between Monticello and Cortez (50 min) - Russ
• Remember when he would run up the stairs in Monticello to say goodnight to all of us and hit his head on the ceiling? - Russ
• Or when we went ice skating and he could do all of the jumps and spins. - Russ
• I also remember the time he was wrestling Danny in the back yard and put Danny's head in dog poop.  - Russ
• Some of the best times I remember are fishing, camping, golfing, or just hanging out with Dad (of course most of the time Danny and I were out in the tent because we had been kicked out of the trailer, but that gave us better access to the pop cooler.) I also remember camping with dad and Danny at Jordanelle and steeling the rangers wheel barrow to haul all of our gear to the camp site (about a half mile hike) and then Dad yelling at some fishermen in a boat for pulling up in front of us and then hitting them with his line when he cast out.  They packed up and left right after that. - Russ
•  When we went camping and he was snoring so incredibly loud and mom poked him and then couldn’t stop giggling – Hailee
• When he and BJ had a “competition” to see who could eat the most rolls – Hailee
• Yelling from the stands at a track meet “Hailee, do some accelerators!” – Russ
• When I went to basketball camp at SUU and he wrote me a very specific track workout for every single day I was there – Hailee
• When Danny and Russ painted the trailer and painted swear words in it because he was colorblind and couldn’t see it. – Hailee
• When we would eat pork noodles and he had the biggest bowl. – Hailee
• His big bowls of ice cream or ice milk. – Hailee
• He threatened to fire Mr. Jorgensen at Murray for giving me a “B” in keyboarding when I had a broken hand. Needless to say, I ended up getting an A and got transferred out of the class immediately.
• When he shoveled the snow off the lawn just so he could mow it. – Hailee
• When mom punched Danny in the face and Danny thought he was going to be in so much trouble.  All dad could say was “Don’t mess with mom!” – Hailee
• “That’s as dangerous as giving a crow a machine gun.”  - Danny
• He called people pohgs – poe with a g on the end – Danny
• His adjustable hats that his hair poked out of – Danny
• He loved New Balance shoes- Danny
• Oldies 94.1 – Danny
• Shooting crows with Russ and Dad at the dump in Monticello – Danny
• Recipe for eating a jack rabbit…put a jack rabbit on a board…leave it sitting out for a week. Then throw away the rabbit and eat the board. – Danny
• Shit Squeegee – Danny
• Getting mad at me when I broke my arm- Danny
• He hated Arlo Dumas! – Danny
• Ray Arbello, not Arballo – Danny
• He was in the National Guard – Danny
• I got good grades for him  - Danny
• He taught me to love Biology – Danny
• He new the kingdom/phylum/class/order/genus/species of all animals. - Danny
• Dad, Russ, and I all took the same class from Dr. Bounds at SUU and he remembered and liked all three of us. - Danny
• Smokin Cigars and Blowin rings when Mom wasn't around.  Schwisher Sweets! - Danny
• "When God was passin out brains you thought he said 'pains' and you didn't want any." - Danny
• His seafood gumbo – Danny
• When he went to New Orleans he got all the facts about the Mississippi River – Danny
• Shoestring spuds – Danny
• When something went wrong he blamed it on me even though it was not my fault.  He said when I was around bad things happen.  Like the time in California he backed into a telephone pole with our new car and it was my fault. - Danny
• Bill and I was playing golf in Porterville.  A fellow golfer was washing his ball next to our tee box.  Bill was teeing off and his ball hit the washer stand and you know the rest.  The ball hit the guy right you know where.  He went down like he had been shot.  They had to take the guy to the doctor.  Bills only comment was “I’ll just bet that guy has a bad night” We all laughed so hard.  We saw the guy golfing a few days after the shot from Bill and he said “if you don't mind I'll golf ahead of you today".  I laugh about this one every time I go golfing. – Uncle Jay
• How about the time I was in a tent and he hit me in the head with the hammer.  I was so mad and he ran like hell behind next door's garage. I picked up a dog bone that looked like a horse leg and sent it over the garage and got Bill in the head.  That's the last time he hit me with a hammer. – Uncle jay
• You guys are nuts.  I remember the time the Culver boys were giving Bill a bad time.  He was about 12 as I remember.  I held the oldest Culver boy down and had Bill Rub dog shit all over his pants and shirt.  Mr. Culver was about as mad as I've ever seen. So we did a repeat the next day.  That's the last time we had trouble with the Culver boys. – Uncle Jay
•  Hey, Eyvon. How about a ride up to the canyon? (so he could run home) - Grandma
•  Don't you think we should have some Hong Kong Chinese food -Grandma
• He thought Milford, was the next best place next to heaven.  I wonder if he was mad at us for burying him in Beaver :) - Grandma
• The pride he had in his kids achievements. Also, how much pride he had when he helped his students achieve. – Grandma
• Maybe I had better mow your lawn.  After Dan had just mowed it – Grandma
• If he heard a good joke he would call me from the school office.  I really miss that. – Grandma
• He was really one great GUY! – Grandma
• How about when he tapped his wedding ring on the steering wheel of the car to the beat of the song on the radio- Mel
• The way he loved popcorn.  He used to pop a whole large brown bag full and go to the drive in movie in Cedar – Mel
• When he threw a plastic glass at sister in the trailer in Cedar and she stepped on it and cut her foot really bad and he made me run to Aunt Virginia’s to get help. – Mel
• When he let me drive the big ole van, with homemade curtains in it, down the Greenville creek bed. – Mel
• The way he used to eat the whole turkey leg, almost the bone – Mel
• When he used to take Greg to the home depot in Murray – Mel
• The way he loved sister so much and was not afraid to show it. – Mel
• He always wanted her to sit on his lap – Mel
• How much pride he took in his band – Mel
• Mowing the lawn everyday sometimes even at 6 in the morning – Mel
• Helping at the café, even if he really didn’t know what he was doing, he still wanted to help – Mel
• His great respect for his brother Jay – Mel
• The way he loved his kids…and you can imagine how he would be with his grandkids! – Mel
• His respect for Mom and Dad.  Especially Mom and Grandma Davis – Mel
• His friendship with Uncle Gary – Mel
• The trips to Merchant Valley for camping and fishing – Mel
•  “Jefferooooo”  -  Bill’s nickname for me beginning in Jr. High, I still remember him yelling it at the top of his lungs throughout the hallways of the school or across the parking lot, whenever he would see me! – Jeff
• Ping pong tournaments late into the night on our back patio with Bill, Jay, and Jesse, since we lived right behind them – Jeff
• Playing in the high school band.  Jay and I played the T-bone and Bill was on the Baritone, and all of the grief he gave Mr. Winkel! – Jeff
• Bill’s imitation of me playing my trombone with my head down to read the music and the T-bone slide sticking high in the air! - Jeff
• Bill and I sleeping out in his back yard in Milford on the lawn chairs that wouldn’t fold down.  Boy, we were sure stiff-necked the next morning! – Jeff
• I remember how mad Bill was at me when Mary brought me over a collection of radio controlled airplanes that he and Jay had built.  I offered to give them back, but he was too proud to accept the offer – Jeff
• I remember going to school at SUSC and living in the same trailer park with Bill and Danna, along with Aunt Virginia, and how they would try to feed and take care of us, since the only thing George McCulley and I had to live on was a permanent keg of beer that sat outside our trailer on our picnic table in the trailer park! – Jeff
• Bill playing bass guitar to Louie-Louie! – Jeff
• Bill and Danna’s dedicated friendship throughout the years, and his occasional unexpected and welcomed phone calls to let me know that we were still buddies! – Jefferoooo

Like I said, there were a ton! I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did.  Love you all!