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Uncle Bill’s Metamorphosis

Copyright © 2004, W. David Tarver

This has been a crazy week. It started peacefully enough, with a flight to LA. It ended with an unexpected trip to Michigan. In between, I caught snippets of the controversy caused by Bill Cosby’s statements about poor people "not holding up their end of the bargain."

If Bill Cosby had been making his statements 60 years ago, he might well have been talking about another Bill – my Uncle Bill, William Wise Hayden. You see, Uncle Bill was the product of a difficult home environment, a home where alcohol abuse and poverty were a constant feature. Bill was smart and handsome, and in fact the ladies called him "The Dark Clark", after Clark Gable. In spite of these gifts, Bill made some bad choices and ended up in trouble. In fact, he ended up in jail for a number of years. My mother (Bill’s younger sister) was instrumental in arranging the parole that finally got him out. All of this happened before I was born.

Uncle Bill, circa 1995

By the time I was old enough to realize what was going on, Bill was out of jail. He lived in Detroit and worked at a place called Jax Car Wash. Later he got a job at the Ford Motor Company. I knew Uncle Bill as a gregarious man who was the life of the party at every family gathering. He often visited our home in Flint, Michigan, and whenever he was around you could hear him from half a block away. If Bill arrived at our house while I was sleep in my bed, his loud voice and incessant laughter would invariably wake me up. Bill was loud, sort of wild, and most of the time he was a lot of fun to be around.

Uncle Bill took up photography as a hobby, and he was very good at it. He not only took great pictures at family gatherings, he also met, befriended and photographed many of the jazz greats who visited the Detroit area, including Earl Klugh, George Benson, Les McCann and many more. His photography hobby also allowed him to rub elbows with many dignitaries, including long-time Detroit mayor Coleman Young. In 1990, when Nelson Mandela visited Detroit after being released from prison, Bill was there to meet and photograph the South African hero.

At Ford Motor Company, Uncle Bill was an hourly worker at the transmission plant. Bill was proud of his work at Ford, and he would often tell me how he met his quota for transmission parts after only a few hours and could therefore leave work early to enjoy a "cold one". Bill was also active with his union, United Auto Workers Local 182, and he eventually became a loyal and trusted member of the Trade Union Leadership Council.

The main thing I remember about Uncle Bill is the way that he would often make someone’s day with a friendly comment or a timely compliment. Upon ending a transaction with a downtrodden store clerk, Bill would say something like, "Thank you ma’am. You are the epitome of feminine pulchritude!" The recipient of that compliment would be beaming for the rest of the day, even if she didn’t quite know what it meant.

Last Monday, my Uncle Bill died.

Only two days before, on Saturday, I talked with Bill when he called to wish me Happy Birthday. He sounded like he was doing poorly, but it was just like Bill to remember my birthday in spite of his poor health. I encouraged him to see his doctor, but his doctor was out of town and Bill refused to go to the emergency room.

So instead of returning to New Jersey as planned, I made the unexpected trip to Michigan to see the family and to attend Uncle Bill’s memorial service. The service was small and beautiful, and it was heartening to see some of the people Bill touched over the years – family, friends, co-workers from Ford. Before the service we played some of Bill’s beloved jazz and reminisced about all the colorful times.

While I sat there during the service, I thought about Bill Cosby’s statements of a few days earlier. I thought that if Uncle Bill was a young man today, he might have been one of those young knuckleheads Bill Cosby was referring to. I wondered what causes a person to make the transition from young knucklehead to beloved family member and good citizen. Is it simply fear of incarceration? Is it the love and support of a family member or a friend? Is it an internal desire to do the right thing? Is it a job or a hobby?

Whatever the cause, Uncle Bill made that transition in his life, and in the process he proved that people can overcome their circumstances, if given a chance. People can grow and change. People can love and be loved – even when they start out as knuckleheads.

W. David Tarver

Flint, Michigan

June 1, 2004