MY WINGMAN

Not sure I understood what the term “wingman” meant until Tom Cruise’s mega hit movie “Top Gun” came out. Of course in the movie The Iceman ran interference for Cruise while he shot down all the bad guys. For me the term simply means someone who has your back in good times as well as bad times.

As fate would have it my “wingman” turned out to be a boy that lived across the dirt road from my grandparents and we never met until the seventh grade. Billy Curtis in a strange happenstance came into my life as more of a guardian angel than two seventh graders meeting for the first time. Not saying I was a discipline problem in the seventh grade, but there were times I did cross the line. One day at recess ( yes young folks back then even the inmates got a recess) I was nose to nose with a bully over some silly misunderstanding. Just before things got physical I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. Billy Curtis stepped in the middle and looked both of us down. That was my first encounter with my future “wingman”. President Theodore Roosevelt once said, ” Speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far”. Billy Curtis sort of epitomized that quote for the duration of our friendship.

From that day through high school we did everything together. He was my educational mentor (which I desperately needed), my teammate, and my confident. After high school we took different paths, Billy Curtis off to private employment and me off to college. Even though we took different directions we still maintained the friendship for years to come.

My friend fell into poor health years ago and finally passed in the height of Covid. It hurt that I could not be there to pay my last respects, but Covid restrictions limited the ceremony to family only. The day of his funeral I could only think back to the sixty plus years of friendship with him. I remember in particular the seventh grade when my “wingman” put his big hand on my shoulder and reminded me to “walk softly”.

Be safe