Bill Wheeler

BILL WHEELER was our early classmate, a charter member of our nerdy MLC gang, sometimes a startling presence in our lives, and always our friend. At the time of Bill's death, our mutual friend Ken Dragoon posted these thoughts on the MLC Alumni Facebook page:

Photo by Pete Lowry, circa 1969

Many of us met Bill at the Metropolitan Learning Center where he attended school and his father was one of the founding faculty members. Bill fit into MLC’s inclusive social fabric, but he was an odd person even by those standards. He was given to outsized emotional responses, and was socially awkward. Although Bill was brilliant and knowledgeable (passionate about medieval England), he was also dyslexic and could hardly write. Perhaps most distressingly, he might begin telling you something very interesting, but somewhere along the way, and you were never quite sure where, the story had gone from reality to fantasy. Indeed we were never quite sure what was real and what was imaginary about Bill. That made it hard to be his friend. We knew that his home life was difficult, his father openly hostile toward him at school. Only shortly before his death did Bill confide the extent of the cruelty and abuse he endured. He suffered from a number of physical and mental disabilities and was never able to hold a job. He lived on Social Security disability and food stamps. In truth, Bill lived at the edge of society where social outcasts who cannot live up to the American standard of self reliance and personal responsibility are relegated. Some months ago Bill popped back into my life as he did infrequently over our lives. He needed a ride to a medical appointment. As an adult, his appearance and personal hygiene were those of a homeless person. I don’t know if he was ever homeless, but he always seemed close to it. I agreed to take him to his appointment on condition that he bathe beforehand. He got into the car with a badly swollen left leg. He said it was cancer and he didn’t have long to live. It was hard to take at face value given his history of dramatics, but he let me come with him to one of his appointments. It was sobering to hear from a real doctor how his cancer had spread and it looked very concerning.

In the same thread, our friend and classmate Jason Lynch offered this counterpoint:

I was 13 or 14 when I discovered the reality of mental illness. The very concept just had not occurred to me until then. And it was Bill who first manifested his own alternative reality in front of me. Oh, I already knew people lied at that time in my life, even on purpose to hurt someone else. As far as I know, Bill didn't do that, at least not on purpose. I don't think he ever set out to hurt anyone—but sometimes it happened as a result of his own actions. I just don't think he ever really thought about it. It seemed like when Bill lied about something, it just became his own new reality, a reality in his mind only. A reality that could change two minutes, two hours, or two days later when he would lie again and remake his own mental landscape. When I was in high school this disturbed me. So I avoided him after that. I was very surprised to see him at Sam [Lowry]'s wedding reception at PSU a few years ago. And I avoided him there as well. He was not someone I ever wanted to talk to, or see, again. I'm happy that several of you were able to remain friends with him, and maybe provide a little stability (and money) in his later years. You were very kind and gracious to a difficult and troubled person. But I can't say I will miss him. As I already said privately to Sam, if you die in Grants Pass, you're already halfway to Purgatory, so it won't cost you as much in the end. May he rest in peace.

Another friend and classmate, Nicholas Hill, added this:

Bill Wheeler passed away Tuesday morning. A founding student of MLC. Joy in his heart and always a smile. He was working with computers in 1968. So smart.

All three reminiscences make sense to me, but I think there was more to Bill that needs to be honored. Not only was he dyslexic, clinically hyperactive, too used to assaults on his self-worth, and with some mental tweak that generated those off-putting delusions, he was also gay, with abiding love for teenage boys. Unusual in every way, Bill, at MLC (itself nearly as unusual), was by turns avoided and bullied, accepted and embraced. And he was—in ways important to him—a quintessential MLC success story, completing a diploma and finding friendship when he might not have at a different school—although he might have, being brilliant and full of love.

At MLC in those early days, loud overeager Bill could be found reading, offering the Vulcan salute (he strongly identified with Star Trek's Spock whom he uncannily resembled), playing foursquare, working on his amateur radio license, or joining a field trip or day-hike. I believe it was a craving for acceptance that supercharged his flights of fancy—descriptions of experiences he could not possibly have had, imagining they would impress. Perhaps this same craving, and an innate generosity that would shape his life, led to his acts of great selflessness: on an ill-starred Camp Westwind trip in 1968 or 69 when most everyone got the flu, Bill unhesitatingly took care of them until he finally contracted the bug.

As Ken's portrait makes clear, after he graduated, moved on and grew to young adulthood, Bill's life became difficult. He never worked, spent time at the State Hospital, had a scrape or two with the law, and yes, lived once or twice on the streets. Perhaps by contrast though, my own experience of the adult he eventually managed to become always left me amazed at the achievement—the passage from that, to this: Bill became himself, lived life pretty much on his own terms, found community, and was happy.

At the various homes to which he invited me over the years—usually for a birthday party, or to pick him up for a meal out (he'd try to pay, even when broke), or for a meal in (he loved to cook, lavishly, chaotically)—I almost always found Bill sharing space with a collection of others, usually male and female, one often, I think, his "Rep Payee," responsible for receiving Bill's disability checks. To my eyes Bill became hyper-savvy about the social welfare bureaucracy—a matter of survival.

I have no real concept of his romantic life; it appeared Bill always had a crush, real, removed, or unrequited; but much more than that, it seemed—not unlike A.S. Neill himself!—he translated his unhappy youth into a passion for saving others from unhappiness, his great capacity for love into durable, platonic mentorship, guruship, or wizardship, for street kids, lost kids, dispossessed kids; his friends, his disciples, his "water brothers," and sisters.

It sounds as if such relationships risked growing inappropriate, but I am certain they did not; they were his life's work. The most remarkable evidence came to light at Bill's memorial, held in his beloved sister Liza's back yard on September 11, 2016. One or two people appeared (I may be conflating them, but others present can attest) whom no-one I knew, knew. One told of a would-be field marshal at the downtown Occupy encampment, in 2011, complaining to an organizer about "this guy" who thought he knew how to manage things. "This guy" had a big beard, was brash and unkempt; the organizer confronted him, sized him up, and reported to the would-be field marshal that "the guy" was right about everything! The guy was Bill. Later one of the fellows attending the memorial said he'd asked Bill about his obvious followers. "How many have you rescued," he asked Bill. "Think about it," Bill replied. The fellow reflected. "Hundreds?" "No," Bill said. "It is not about the numbers."

My own favorite moments came from discussing politics—he had elaborate opinions that always stood up to scrutiny—or from occasional, outrageously competent utterances. After my mom died, in 2014, we were riding on a TriMet bus; Bill was noodling on his phone. "Look here," he said, "here's her obituary on OregonLive." I had no idea it had even been published. On another bus ride we were discussing the latest assaults on Oregon's rural land use planning. "But you can grow something, anywhere! " quoth Bill. Discussing Obama's election in 2008, he burst into tears, from pride for the downtrodden.

There remained times of sorrow and confusion, of course. When Bill's father, founding MLC teacher Ehrick Wheeler, died in 2001, Bill struggled to come to terms with memories of the man who had largely rejected him. With a small inheritance, as I recall, he bought himself a library of mystical books. Another time, apparently just returned from a road trip with a friend—the description could not have been real, the old delusoriness resurfacing—he was freaked out and scared.

But these times were the exception. I once asked him if he ever felt burdened. "No, I love life!" Bill said.

Ken's description of Bill's prostate cancer matches mine, although Bill informed me soon after he was diagnosed, at Laughing Planet on the PSU campus. Ken and I tried to help Bill get his teeth fixed, but Bill ran out of time. The story of his departure from Portland for Grants Pass, months before his death, came to me as whispers and rumors. There was a party. There was a betrayal. The net was cast in Bill's broad community—at this stage centered around pagan religion, within which he was known as Wuffa—for someone to take him in and help him die. A young man named Steven, and his family, stepped up, and off Bill went.

I will give some of the last words to Steven, and to their mutual friend Lexi:

Steven H: "William Wheeler was a great friend; thank you for giving me the chance to write about him. He meant a lot to me and to the pagan community. He was a great teacher and mentor to many in the community, and the co-author of spiritual texts. He guided many people into their spiritual journey, and through his teaching his students have gone on to reach the lives of hundreds of people of several faiths. He will always be remembered as a great man and friend who changed many lives for the better. We will always miss him. I doubt there is a website that says it well ...."

Lexi E: "I met William through a ... Facebook group back in 2015. I was new to the spiritual arts and had a specific question about a specific practice. He reached out, and the first thing he wrote was, 'How can this Mage help you?' I asked him what I needed answers to; even though a friend had already answered my question, in person, I still asked to get a second opinion. He not only answered, but elaborated upon the answer that my friend gave me. He offered to help out if I needed anything else, and I got a really good vibe from him. We corresponded almost every day for the last 15 months of his life. That's the type of person William was. He was service oriented. He wanted to help people and leave the world a little better than it was before he passed. He gave me the best guidance anyone possibly could've at that time in my life. I was very rough around the edges. I had a lot of walls up. But he was patient, and not only that. Usually, when you put up a wall, people get defensive or just walk away. He was something special. He knew exactly how to walk through that wall, phase right through it, and give a hug that didn't disarm you but let you know it was safe and okay to be vulnerable if you wanted to. Besides that, he was incredibly intelligent. He understood the mind. And he was literally an encyclopedia of the Occult. If you asked a question about any religion, there was a very good chance he knew the answer, or in the few instances he was unsure, he'd admit no one could know everything and would come back with an answer. Besides that, he cared about people. I guess I could say more, but it would be about me and not him. I miss him, but also feel he did what he needed to do in life and although he passed way too young, he accomplished everything he needed to by helping a lot of people."

Of the fine gathering held in Liza's back yard to remember Bill, his sister had this to say:

"The gathering for my brother was wonderful; so good to see his old friends from school, even the ones I did not recognize at first. Sorry about that. The weather was perfect. We shared stories and food. He had a good sendoff. – Liza

Bill Wheeler was our classmate, a member of our MLC gang, a startling presence in our lives, and always our friend. I will miss him very much. – Sam Lowry

After Bill's obituary in the Oregonian, September 6, 2016: William Allen Wheeler, born March 2, 1954, died in his sleep on Aug. 30, 2016, in Grants Pass Oregon, after a long illness. Born and raised in Portland, he graduated in 1973 from one of the first graduating classes of the Metropolitan Learning Center, where his father was one of the founding faculty. He loved history, loved to tell a good story, was full of joy, and loved his friends fiercely. He was survived by his mother, Sylvia Wheeler of Kailua-Kona Hawaii; his sisters, Liza Rodenburg of Portland, Margaret Peters of Aloha, and Julia Yackley of Portland; and his niece and four nephews. The family asked for donations to charities benefiting the homeless and mentally ill. There was a private gathering to celebrate his life on Sunday, September 11, 2016.

As we left, he went to fill a prescription, but it was clear he was making a direct tradeoff between buying medicines and buying food. I was honored to be able to support him a little financially in some of the months before his death. He never asked for much, not more than he needed to fill the space between his income and his food and medications. We had dinner together one last time before he left for Grants Pass where he lived out his last months. I admitted to Bill that I felt I had fallen short as a friend—not stepping up to the plate to help him more through his terrifically difficult life. He just didn’t see it that way and said that without the support of his friends at MLC, he would not have survived adolescence. Bill seems to have lived his life as graciously as he could given the cards he was dealt. How we treated him as friends and society gives me pause to question whether we are living our own lives with half the grace Bill did.

Photo courtesy of Liza Rodenburg