Bill Wheeler leaps high in the air for a rebound while teammate, Jim Clem looks on.
Not often enough does one realize how high Bill Wheeler once leaped. He’s shown here in the Chuck Smith gym 55 years ago during a game his Enumclaw Hornets basketball team lost to Fife.
But Wheels as he later came to be known kept winning the hearts of those who knew him well. Following graduation, Bill’s talents were bigger than his hometown’s needs and first landed at Big Bend C.C. where he was going to learn to fly, then to Ellensburg to further ground his education. At Central Washington College he studied how to become a wild cat, and succeeded wildly. There he gained the nickname Wheels in a story so fantastic that it can only be told over a cold beer as he brings a smile to your face.
A forever friendship was forged when Bill Wheeler (in plaid pants), Bill Kombol, and Keith Hanson took a week-long road trip to Reno, Disneyland, and Big Sur in Eugene Wheeler’s Lincoln Continental Mark IV. This late November 1975 photo by Pauline Kombol at 1737 Franklin Street, Enumclaw, Washington.
After schooling, ranching, and the passage of time, Wheels returned to his home town to mold the life he sought to build. There in the seat of every imaginable piece of heavy mobile equipment, Bill sculpted the earth, buried utilities, excavated customer’s dreams, and thrived. He soon became the second letter of S & W Construction, learning much from his first letter partner, Sam Schaafsma. But a first-rate man demands his own dominion, and it wasn’t long before Wheeler Construction was born.
Bill Wheeler compares Operating Engineer union cards with 99-year-old Cal Bashaw, left (Oct. 24, 2019). The Wheeler and Bashaw families both moved from Alaska to Enumclaw in 1965, after which Bill became good friends with Cal’s son, Wynn.
Requiring further refinement in the finer arts of life, Bill placed a ring on the finger of a fiery, red-haired, Scots-Irish lass of clever tongue and semi-sweet disposition. Children were born and a fine home built. In time the wheeling wild cat was tamed, but how long it took no one has yet stated with certainty. What skills he lacked on the golf links he more than made up for at job sites moving enough dirt with backhoes, bulldozers, graders, and dumptrucks to build a dozen golf courses. At the poker tables, he’s always a threat, but mostly to his own wallet.
Throughout it all, Bill Wheeler has remained as devoted to friends as he is to his adopted hometown of Enumclaw where he arrived in the 7th grade. Legions number the good deeds and generous gifts of time, labor, equipment, and materials that Bill has donated to his community. Of late he’s even found a new girl in his life and spends hours playing handsome prince to a charming Princess Lucy.
So in a Leap of Faith with hopes that others second this emotion, I hereby declare February 29th as International* Bill Wheeler Appreciation Day, to be celebrated once every four years by people just like you and me who appreciate the finest things in life. As for the other 365 days . . . may God bless Bill Eugene Wheeler.
* International due to his mother, Pat Wheeler’s Canadian heritage.
Bill Wheeler enjoying a cup of black coffee and blackberry cobbler at a Jan. 7, 2023 Pokerque with his longtime Enumclaw pals.
Mom snapped my picture a couple of day before I left for the Oregon Coast.
In September 1975, I moved to the Oregon Coast. I was fresh out of college, grew a beard, long hair, and bought a motorcycle. I wasn’t looking for work, just loafing. I collected weekly unemployment checks of $93 from a coal mining job I’d quit six months earlier, then dodged Employment Security rules by only seeking jobs for which I was miserably unqualified. It was a practice upon which my parents rightfully frowned.
The summer crowds had gone home. It was just me, my Honda 360, and a head full of dreams living at the Lincoln City cabin my parents inherited from my grandfather. I walked for miles along empty beaches to out-of-the-way places. On a long hike to the most secluded stretch of beach imaginable, I found a Japanese floating glass ball. I fixed grits for breakfast upon which I slabbed thick slices of butter. I learned to bake cheesecakes and ate them over the next few days. There was no shower at the cabin so I took long, hot baths and contemplated in silence.
The Lincoln City home my grandfather, John H. Morris purchased in 1968, and my parents inherited after his 1973 death.
Some pages of history are best left unturned, but not this one. I was stupid. The third night there I decided to make popcorn the old-fashioned way, so heated cooking oil in a pot and left the lid on. It got hot! When lifting the lid the oil caught fire. I panicked and badly burned the knuckles of my left hand. That night I slept on the sofa with my hand in a gallon-sized jar filled with ice water to stem the pain. By morning the burned skin had filled with liquid and grew to the size of a lemon. Foolishly, I sought no medical treatment but lived with it for days until poking a sterile needle through the skin at the base of the burn to slowly release excess fluid. Months after healing, the skin was still stained a reddish hue that took years to fade to beige.
An organic food co-op had opened a few doors up from the Old Oregon. It was a thrown-together, hippie-type place with barrels, buckets, and jars of grains, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. The co-op was operated by volunteers and after several visits, I offered to help. I joined the staff and one day reorganized shelves to better display the myriad jars of grains. I had grown close to a guy named David who was part of the co-op structure. When mentioning to him my layout improvement, David admonished my boastfulness. The co-op’s ethos was to not take credit for personal accomplishments but to subdue our egos for the advancement of the common good. David was in his early 30s, charismatic, with a kindly wife and daughter. He invited me to join his family at the Taft Tigers high school football game on several Friday nights. It was just like being back home in Enumclaw.
I watched movies at the Lakeside Theater (now the Bijou), but many nights walked to the Old Oregon and hung out with the hippies and long hairs that populated the tavern. There were two pool tables and a jukebox in the corner loaded with good 45s. On some weekends, a local rock band occupied a spot in the corner and patrons danced. Usually, I can recall the times and places by which songs were popular, but the only ones I remember that fall were Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” and the Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes.”
One night at the Old Oregon, I made the acquaintance of a pair of carpenters building a home on the Salishan spit. We joined for breakfast the next morning where I drank my first cup of coffee. Even with cream and sugar, I could stomach its bitter taste. Afterward, we drove to the house they were framing where I hung out half the day. Mostly I wanted to access this long spit of land forming Siletz Bay that was only accessible through a private gated community.
In mid-October, I geared up to watch every inning of the 1975 World Series between Boston and Cincinnati. For years World Series games were played during the day when I was in school, so I only watched on weekends. With no obligations, this series would be different. To prepare, I bought copies of Sporting News and Sports Illustrated reading every article. I got lucky because that showdown is often called one of baseball’s greatest. If you’ve forgotten, the Big Red Machine won the seventh games, after Carlton Fisk’s game six walk-off homerun tied the series for Boston. My parents visited for a couple of days during that week, picking up Danica on their way, who was in her first year of college at Lewis & Clark.
Generally alone, I found solace at the Driftwood Library. It was a three-block walk to this ramshackle building of uneven floors and narrow passageways. The library was like an overstuffed bookstore – the kind with a sleeping cat in a window – except this repository observed the Dewey decimal system. I mostly read classics like John Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Somerset Maugham, and Isaac Asimov’s science fiction. Bolstered by my recent World Series fascination, I read Roger Kahn’s classic, “The Boys of Summer” joining the author’s love of the Brooklyn Dodgers. I explored the poetry of Robinson Jeffers and wrote a few lines myself. I spent long afternoons reading in front of the cabin’s picture windows with stunning ocean views. I absorbed “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and stared in wonder at the birds on the beach. But that autumn’s most surprising literary leap was Albert Einstein’s “General Theory of Relativity.”
Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity.
It’s not a difficult book to comprehend. Einstein’s genius was to use thought experiments to illustrate scientific principles. There in Bern, he formulated his theory of relativity while employed as an examiner in a Swiss patent office. He simplified the speed of light by conjuring the image of a streetcar rushing away from a clock tower. Einstein surmised that as the streetcar gained velocity, time for the human rider slowed relative to the hands of that clock in Bern. As the tram approached the speed of light, the second hand on the clock would appear to stop – at least to the passenger with telescopic eyes looking back. But, the passenger’s clock in Einstein’s streetcar beat normally.
A storm broke loose in Einstein’s mind after realizing that time elapsed at different rates depending upon how fast the observer moves through space. Upon arriving at his theory, Einstein insisted that he’d tapped into ‘God’s thoughts.’
The Bern clock tower with Einstein’s thought experiment briefly explained.
As for my thoughts, I’d grown lonesome and figured my current life experiment hadn’t produced satisfactory results. Cashing unemployment checks, alone at movies, reading books, and endless beach walks are interesting diversions, but not the foundation of a gainful life. Volunteering at the food co-op for an hour or so, reminded me how much I enjoyed working with others. My months of seclusion needed to end, so I packed my bag and rode my motorcycle home, arriving the week before Thanksgiving.
The best buddy trip of my life soon launched. I’m not quite sure how it came together, but Keith Hanson, then working at Almac-Stroum planned a one-week vacation and invited Bill Wheeler and me to join. Wheels secured his dad’s Lincoln Continental Mark IV with Eugene Wheeler engraved on the dashboard. It was a solid fatherly reminder for three guys in their early 20s, as to whose car we were driving. We left the day after Thanksgiving.
Bill Wheeler, Bill Kombol, Keith Hanson, late November 1975 standing in front of the Lincoln Continental in the Kombol family driveway at 1737 Franklin Street.
On Friday morning, Mom captured our mid-70s fashion with several photos in the driveway. For most of the trip, I sat in the back seat while Keith and Wheels traded driving duties. On that first day, we traveled all night through a snowstorm to Reno, arriving Saturday morning to a cheap breakfast and games of Keno. There we played blackjack and roulette, then tested our luck with dice. Wheels and I stayed out very late only to be awakened abruptly Sunday morning after Keith, a fan since his North Dakota day turned on the Vikings game.
We drove south for L.A., stopping at the Joshua Tree desert on our way to an adventure in Disneyland. After that, we twisted north along Highway 1, admiring Big Sur scenery and listening to the 8-track Beach Boys tapes we’d bought in San Luis Obispo. After picking up my sister, Danica in San Francisco, we toured the Sonoma wine country getting buzzed on Chenin Blanc and other blends, then, lest we wear out our welcome drove north along Highway 101. We continued up the Oregon coast driving all night through rain storms that never stopped arriving back home the following morning. It was a road trip that more than anything solidified the bonds of friendship we’ve shared for five decades.
Back home, I hung out with Wayne Podolak who was similarly out of college and unemployed. That December we played tennis on the Junior High courts during which we hatched a plan for a long trip to Hawaii in spring.
I hadn’t yet digested how my months of solitude added up. I didn’t keep a journal back then, but each day I typed out lists of words and their definitions to improve my vocabulary. I was inspired by Uncle Evan who gave me the handwritten pages of words he memorized thirty years earlier while in college.
At the time poetry seemed the best way to convey thoughts and feelings I couldn’t fully articulate. There in the warmth of my childhood bedroom on a fog-bound day with Christmas fast approaching, I penned the first draft of a poem initially called “Beaming.”
The original poem titled Beaming, rewritten later that day as A Single Moment Captured.
Channeling the Bern tram car of Einstein’s thought experiment I rewrote the poem and gave it a new title:
A Single Moment Captured
Traveling on a beam of light
bound to live until
a single moment captured
motionless and still.
A simple thought now trapped in time
caught within that wave
a glimpse of yesterday revealed
now listlessly engaged.
Light, oh light shine on from here
and never stop to rest
your brightest beam will one day find
its destiny no less.
Bill Kombol – Dec. 18, 1975
I was trying to make sense of the uncertainties of where life was taking me. At the moment, the tram car I was riding had no particular destination. But, I found comfort in believing it had a destiny.
Taken at our home at 1737 Franklin Street before leaving for graduation ceremonies, June 2, 1971.
Fifty years ago I turned 18, a few weeks after graduating from high school. My head was filled with dreams of heading off to college. My bank account was bolstered by countless graduation cards filled with $5, $10, and $20 bills. I was filled with certainty in the knowledge that so many relatives and friends believed in me. The feeling was one of confidence.
Those first post-graduate weeks were spent lounging in Lincoln City in the company of Grandpa Morris and cousin, Dave Falk. Returning home, I began my second season as an ice cream vendor for another cousin, Dan Silvestri selling popsicles from a three-wheel Cushman scooter. That summer job netted me $1,032, plus all the Sidewalk Sundays I cared to eat.
The graduate (left) and his 68-year-old self, standing beside the same home at 1737 Franklin Street, this time holding the high school diploma awarded 50 years earlier.
One thought however, did not cross my mind. I spent no time reflecting on what life might be upon reaching the age of my grandparents, great aunts and uncles, many of whom had sent cards and offered words of encouragement. It isn’t in a boy’s nature to think about growing old. It’s certainly of an older man’s to ponder what has long since passed.
My Dad never finished high school, but insisted I go to college. My grandfather provided funds for my first year. After that I was on my own and worked summer jobs to pay my way. If I’ve learned one thing in the ensuing 50 years, its thankfulness––the knowledge that I stand today on the shoulders of those who came before. We exist because our parents brought us into existence. And they too, through generations stretching back to the beginning of humanity.
I’ve grown to recognize how blessed I’ve been by those who blazed the trail to where I now dwell. And to recognize the debt we each owe to those who helped us along, taught us a song, or how to belong. To better cultivate that sense of obligation, we owe it to those coming after to pave for them a better path forward, in gratitude for that trail blazed for us. And through it all to rely on the grace of God whose plan unfolds every day, whether be helped or hindered by each daily action we undertake.
Perhaps my great-great grandmother who came across the plains on the Oregon Trail said it best:
“Our being in this world is not accidental. We all have a mission to do some special work, and it is work that will honor Him and bless those around us. If we do not find that work and do it, our life is a failure; the true end of living is not realized. We may not learn in a moment; but step-by-step, day-by-day; as we go on things will be made clearer. Those who do the smallest things well because they are God’s plan, are to be honored far above those who do great things for the world’s praise.”
