In Memoriam: William F. White Jr.

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Heather and Bill White in 1996.

She was set to retire in a couple of weeks. He was going to buy her a grill and show her how to use it.

But then what seemed to be a minor bout with some seasonal bug — fatigue, shortness of breath, surely nothing to fret about — became something else altogether.

They went to the ER instead of Home Depot. And seven days later, he was gone.

• • •

William F. White Jr. of Smyrna, Tenn., died May 17 of complications from bone cancer. He was 77.

Bill met my sister-in-law Heather F. Pigeon nearly four decades earlier, when a mutual friend introduced them at a Ruby Tuesday in Antioch, Tenn. He and Heather hit it off, and would’ve gone out together the very next night. But that was Bill’s birthday, and he had plans with his parents. So their first date got pushed back a week.

Two years later, on Aug. 4, 1990, they were married in Oak Ridge, a couple of months after Herself and I tied the knot at Hyde State Park near Santa Fe.

Bill was a Nashville boy. He was born there on March 4, 1949, and graduated from Hillsboro High School in 1967. Then Uncle Sam sent him on a road trip. He served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to ’72, including a year in Vietnam with the 1st Signal Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One). He was based first in Saigon as a typist before being sent to the field to disassemble signal towers.

“Wild Man.”

Back in the States with an honorable discharge, Bill attended Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, graduating in 1977 with a business degree and the nickname “Wild Man.”

In 1985 he joined Horizon Wine and Spirits, going on to win many sales awards over a 30-year career. The owner of one store on his route said he always looked forward to Bill’s calls because he was the only sales rep he liked.

It saddens me to say that Bill and I didn’t really get to know each other well — Herself and I saw more of Heather than Bill, even after he retired in 2015. But I can see why that store owner enjoyed visiting with him. For a wild man and a sales rep, Bill was remarkably laid back.

We did have some things in common. More hair than was deemed respectable Back in the Day®. Nicknames. And nicotine. Bill kicked the habit after taking a work-sponsored smoking-cessation class — the only one of the 20 men in the class to finish it and kick those butts to the curb.

But his sport of choice was golf. Bill originally played in the men’s league at the Old Fort Golf Course in Murfreesboro, but finally shifted to the senior league, quipping that he “couldn’t hang with the young boys.”

An Eagle Scout (Troop 121, BSA, 1964), Bill also enjoyed hiking Tennessee’s state parks, visiting local farmers’ markets, and cooking. In recent years he’d tried his hand at baking, and cinnamon muffins became one of his faves. Heather loved them too.

• • •

Maggie.

Bill is survived by his wife of 35 years, Heather F. White of Smyrna; a brother, Donald White, and sister, Linda White, both of Nashville; in-laws Beth and Darren Morgan of Woodsboro, Md., the two of us here in Albuquerque; and Magdalene, an 18-year-old tabby cat. Bill and Heather parented eight cats in the years together and fostered many more.

He was preceded in death by his parents, William F. White Sr., and Nannie (Nan) Louise Whitfield White.

Funeral arrangements are pending. In lieu of flowers the family suggests donations to Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee or WMOT Roots Radio.

But don’t anyone start a GoFundMe for the grill. Heather will buy that herself.

Invasion of the Circulation Snatchers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
A little trip down Memory Lane to The New Mexican, circa 1991.

Since I’m not road-tripping this holiday weekend, what say we do a bit of time-traveling?

Shortly after I joined The New Mexican in 1988, publisher Robert McKinney reclaimed that paper from the soulless zopilotes at Gannett. He’d sold it to them in 1976 on the condition that he would retain editorial and managerial control, but just two years later took them to court, alleging breach of contract.

It took a while, but McKinney beat them like a chicken-thieving mutt, returned as publisher in 1987, and in ’89 reacquired the paper he’d first bought in 1949 for a cool half-mil’, but this time paying a slightly higher price: “his remaining Gannett stock, then worth about $33 million,” according to The New York Times.

Today The New Mex remains one of the rarest of birds — a locally owned newspaper. McKinney’s daughter, Robin McKinney Martin, is the big boss.

And once again a McKinney is getting set to throw some hands with Gannett — this time, down south, where those bandidos own and operate the Las Cruces Sun News.

Now, I’ve not read that paper in ages. I do look at its website now and again, and every time I wonder why in hell I bothered.

This is what the American daily newspaper looks like in The Year of Our Lard 2026: the journalistic equivalent of the walking dead. A zombie, full of canned “news” from elsewhere, edited and printed out of town, far from its readership, if any. Check the “contact us” page: Just three staffers listed there — a news director, a news reporter, and a sports reporter.

Now check the contact page at The New Mex.

One name you won’t see there is Julia Gentin. She’ll be joining The New Mex in July to work in Doña Ana County — home of the Sun News — as the Santa Fe paper’s first bureau journalist for southern New Mexico.

“Yes, we’re growing our newsroom and expanding our coverage area,” writes executive editor Bill Church.

It’s an ambitious project, and I’ll be interested to see how it shakes out. Santa Fe and Las Cruces are very different places, and The New Mex is not the acme of perfection. Neither is the Albuquerque Journal, likewise locally owned. No newspaper is.

And speaking of zombies, I wonder whether McKinney — who died in 2001 — might be suiting up for the battle from The Beyond.

Some Gannett drone once called him an “old coot” in a memo. Which was accurate. But I don’t think he liked it.

Flag on the play

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Lady Liberty? Naw, just another headless dummy.

Anybody else feel as though they should tuck Old Glory away and fly the Jolly Roger this Memorial Day weekend?

Whenever our fellow Americans get their bib-’alls in a bunch and saddle us with some featherbedding fascist who’s only passing through to rob the savings and loan, poke anything with a pulse, and then burn the whole town down to its foundations, why, I think about how refreshing it would be to rock the hammer and sickle, skull and crossbones, or an upside-down stars and stripes on national holidays.

Someone up the road a ways is doing the latter, perhaps in response to a neighbor who did likewise during the previous administration. A quiet little tit for tat. Haven’t heard any raised voices or gunfire yet, anyway.

I don’t know who I’d be trying to impress with any kind of alternative flag display, though. El Rancho Pendejo sits at the bottom of a cul-de-sac and is seen mostly by the people who live here, the mailman, various tradespersons, and the drivers of a steady stream of delivery vans, though that torrent has become more of a trickle as the economy struggles with a distinct kink in its hose.

It all seems mostly performative, anyway. Like the mouth-breathers flying Trump flags from porch and pickup. Lets you know whom to visit at 2 in the morning come The Revolution, to be sure. But they’re starting to look like an endangered species in any event. Fingers crossed.

Back when we were new to the Greater Patty Jewett Yacht & Gun Club Neighborhood in Bibleburg, our next-door neighbor Marv, a veteran, explained that he flew the flag to make sure that “those guys” (his words) didn’t think they were the only ones entitled to do so.

Maybe that’s the example to follow. Memorial Day isn’t about “those guys.” If it were, we’d all be flying pirate flags for sure.

Buckle up!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
Road hard.

The Memorial Day Shopping Fiesta and Family Barbecue Getaway (Nothing to See Here, Move Along, Move Along) kicks off today with the murders most foul of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” and CBS News Radio, along with any remaining illusions that Americans live in a functioning democracy.

There is no truth to the rumor that the new national anthem for our next 250 years — or perhaps 250 days? Hours? — will be the Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” reimagined by Black Sabbath. Or so we may hope, anyway.

One thing is certain: That cheery little ditty, along with an unauthorized Kid Rock cover of the Eagles’ song “The Last Resort,” will be in heavy rotation down in the Adolf & Eva Memorial Ballroom & Führerbunker. The lyric “Some rich men came and raped the land / nobody caught ’em” will be a huge laugh line for everyone save the slaves serving up the Big Macs and Diet Cokes.

Meanwhile, some good news: M-Day weekend gas prices are at a four-year high! But that won’t keep 39 million of us from cranking up the Family Yacht and burning a few tanks’ worth to spend time eating bad food poorly prepared and swilling tins of thin industrial lager with people we really don’t like all that much.

The Soma Double Cross takes five in the Elena Gallegos Open Space.

Last I looked go-juice was between $4.50 and $5 here in The Duck! City, which didn’t make AAA’s list of the top-10 Memorial Day getaways (the podium: Orlando, FL, Seattle, WA, and New York).

No worries here, bruh. I got my holiday shopping done early yesterday, before the ravening hordes could descend upon the grocery and strip the shelves bare like a cloud of fat betatted locusts. And today I ain’t driving nowhere, nohow, though I do expect to get out on a bike at some point. Yesterday was stellar in the Elena Gallegos Open Space; I saw only a few other trail users as I rumbled along on the old Soma Double Cross, and most seemed to be enjoying the wide-open space as much as I was.

Meanwhile, Republicans will be traveling home after shitting the bed in Congress. Here’s hoping their constituents have a few words with them about the horrible smell.

Sink or swim

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
I wouldn’t expect a warm reception back on dry land, Ratty old chum.

Who knew? There are some shit sandwiches that not even a Republican will eat.

Not on a holiday weekend, anyway.

The ballroom bunker and slush fund for scumbags apparently were not the delightful amuse-bouche Admiral Palsy thought they would be, and the usual congressional dine-and-dash going into a weeklong recess was downsized to a dash, period.

Well! No dessert for you lot. Yo, Rubio! Send this shit soufflé to Vance with my compliments. That shameless hoor will eat anything and smile while he does it.