An old Cayucos resident returns to town

September 22, 2024

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” is currently on Amazon.

Bill, who raised his children in Cayucos and sent them to college and now lives about 30 miles south of here, recently returned to celebrate his 96th birthday with his daughters and son and great grandson and several admirers downstairs at Schooner’s Wharf on open mic night. Bill, whose ancestors hail from Kentucky coal country, was previously embarrassed to be celebrated with military bells and whistles at his current home because he is a Navy veteran.

Why was he embarrassed? “I was not in combat,” Bill stated. “The guys in combat, the ones who were wounded and died deserve celebration, not me.”

I know how he feels. I hate it when people thank me for my service when I served in the army in Europe during the Vietnam War.

But Bill, who is a poet and has his own band (members range from 82 to 96), is so revered by his following that he was regaled with a small parade and was forced to accept it.

People should know about this guy. He once sent me a fairly long piece written in an immaculate hand  (no typewriter or computer) about the years during the end of the war when he left the farm in Iowa where he was raised during the heart of the Great Depression in a large family and was homeless and trying to get into the Navy as a 16 year old.

Sleeping outdoors and spending his days dead broke and trying to find any kind of work for something to eat, he wrote of the deep satisfaction and relief of finally finding a small limited job and having for at least a couple days a roof over his head and something to eat before the Navy finally accepted him when he turned 17 in 1945 and gave him a temporary home.

I told his daughter he needed to have this bit of memoir printed and sent to schools in this affluent area so kids of today can appreciate just how brutally difficult life was at one time in this country; and, because of hard times, people like Bill became strong and humble and indomitable and still exist to relish an abundant lust for life.

Before Bill went on stage to sing three tunes accompanied by his daughter, a singer, and an 83-year-old guitar virtuoso named Nathan, Sue, his daughter, read one of his poems, which received a standing ovation from the crowd. Bill remained seated at the mic and sang with shocking clarity and range for a man nearing a century. His stamina held as they finished up with a little Hank Williams. Bill moved his hands to rhythm, tapped his foot, and smiled, perfectly in sync with his accompanying musicians, and there was even some rumble to his voice.

He was not really performing—he was a natural showman enjoying himself, even hamming it up a little.

I was sitting beside him before and after he went up. When I went to pick up the jacket on his seat when he returned, he shook his head and said, with a grin, to leave it there, because “I’ve got a bony ass.”

I told him I liked his poem. He writes almost every day. His words are simple and move in rhyme and tell a story or thought.

He is skilled and spontaneous and unschooled. He said that he felt his constant thoughts and inspiration came from somewhere up in the universe, but I told him I felt whatever was brewing inside him and insisting on coming out was from his guts and heart and brain, had something to do with curiosity, a rare spirit and energy, a desire to make some sense of this world while alive. A passion.

He was surrounded by his family. Other participants on open mic paid homage. He was wowed by any meager sign of recognition. One son came down from Oregon. There was four generations of the Harland clan. Evidently, there are a couple old ladies already pursuing him after his last companion passed away a couple months back.

I guess you could say he’s taken a pretty good bite out of life and left nothing to waste. Does it get any better than that?