This is Deputy Digby Pancake. I have been entrusted with writing the blog today in honor of Boy Person’s dad. We miss him, but this is the best way we can think of to laugh while crying this week. Let the Tales Of Wild Bill continue!

When Wild Bill was very young, he lost his father to an accident.

Wild Bill may not have known his dad very well, but he grew to know his stepdad Zolley very well. Was Zolley his real stepdad? He was to Wild Bill, so that was good enough. Zolley was a chef who liked to cook up some delicious food along with another type of shall we say…liquid recipe. I do wonder how good his pancakes were. I also wonder about that name. I thought that mine was unique!

But Wild Bill’s new chef stepdad was more than a chef. Yes. He had another job. He had to make ends meet. Somewhere.

Times were hard back then for Wild Bill.

But even in hard times, you can find joy. And well, Wild Bill liked to listen to a particular singer.

He also liked to drive, although he wasn’t old enough to drive yet. And he may or may not have stretched his age to get a driver’s license.

For years after, even today, no one really knew his age. But he needed that license. Times were hard. You did what you had to to survive. And so he made his deliveries. To a particular singer.

He made some special deliveries of something called white lightning.

Now. Some may have judged or would judge today. Some may wonder if in fact Wild Bill grew up to like this white lightning himself. If anyone asked him why he didn’t drink, he would simply say he drank one time and got so sick that he vowed if he lived, he would never drink again. And so. He never drank again.

He instead enjoyed another type of white lightning. By the gallon. Some days, he would drink the whole gallon.

Wild Bill didn’t recall his delivery days very often. And not much else was known about why his chef stepdad chose this way to support his family. There’s a lot of blanks to be filled in. But one thing is certain. This experience likely changed Wild Bill. His step father’s claim to fame may have been who partook of his homemade white lightning. That particular singer. He may or may not have been sorry about it. He may or may not have cared it was illegal. We don’t know. But it’s not for us to judge another’s past. It is up to us to recognize that all experiences shape us when we are growing up. The same understanding we would want shown to us is available for us to give to others. But you don’t need a driver’s license to deliver it.

–Deputy Digby Pancake

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