Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Yesterday I was talking with Andy, and he said that all his father's friends had told
him the same thing, that Billy altered the way we consider the world. And that's true for
me, too. In big things, like politics, he showed me, by example, that it was not only okay
but desirable to think independently and to express yourself honestly. In small things,
like how to deliver a straight line or how to intone the word “good-bye” over the phone
in a way to get a laugh, he affected me so much that I've adopted many of his manner-
isms as my own.
Like everybody here, I'm going to miss him. I'd give a lot for him to be here today,
listening to this eulogy, so that he could hear exactly what I thought of him, how much I
loved him and why. On the other hand, maybe he wouldn't have wanted to listen.
“Web,” he said to me more than once, “I don't really like your writing very much.”
I'll be leaving for the funeral to deliver this in a couple of hours. I'm nervous, of
course, at the prospect of speaking in front of a crowd, and I hope I manage to convey the
naturally ironic manner that made Billy so funny and so dear. The last line is especially
worrisome to me. He said it to me half a dozen times, and I always wondered whether he
meant it, or at least half meant it, and deep down it always irritated me a little even as it
made me laugh.
