Bill Hicks, R.I.P.

 

One of my Postal buddies died a couple weeks ago, on February 14^th.  Bill Hicks, age 59, died on Valentine’s Day.  When I heard Bill had died I said to myself, “That is impossible!   He was too full of life!”

 

Bill did not let grass grow under his feet, he always had something up.

I have seen him openly insult strangers, smiling the whole time.  Here is a few snipets of his life I remember:

 

One time while sorting mail, we could hear a baby crying and screaming in the lobby where postal business was held.  Bill hollered out, “SHUDDUP THAT DAMN BABY!”  Everything got quiet.

One time I remember he was called to the office and going in the office he said, “What did I do this time?”

 

One time we had either a birthday or Christmas party in the middle of the night in the break room.  Bill brought a cake his wife made.  Shortly before then Bill put in for a night off and Art, our supervisor, turned down his leave request.  During the party took a slice of the cake Bill bought.  Before he had a chance to eat it, Bill slid it out from in font of him and said “None of my cake for you!”

 

One night I went out drinking with Bill and our friend Chuck Holmes..  We went to a bar on Kinjac Drive owned by a carrier.  At the bar, Bill kept insulting three rednecks sitting close to us and each time it looked like they were going to settle his smart mouth with us.  Bill told him everything he said he got it from “him”, pointing at me.  He told them to go ahead and get me and they would regret messing with me.  The only thing I knew to do was keep my mouth shut.  Finally, they left.

 

Bill changed over to a rural route carrier.  Bill quickly picked up ways to save steps and time.  He was back in from his route before some even left.  Rural Route carriers were different, they got paid for delivery, not by the hour.

Bill took a part time job being a “Repo Man” at night.  He repossessed cars in the dark.  He loved it.  He finally quit the post office.

Maybe a couple of years after left the Post Office he told me he was building weekend cabins in the north Georgia Mountains.  If I remember correctly, he took repossessed trailers and built boards around them, build a deck and thus you have an expensive mountain get-away cabin.  The last I heard he made hundreds of thousands and borrowed hundreds of thousands.

 

They threw away the pattern on Bill Hicks, they don’t make them like that anymore.