Fat Wally

Fat Wally has had a good year. Over Labor Day weekend last year FW was rushed to the Medical College and diagnosed with Leukemia.You might say, Big Rob, how can he have had a good year when he has been suffering with cancer the past 11 months? Well, you don’t know Fat Wally. Like a lighthouse in a foggy harbor, Wally’s light has illuminated a path between the buoys allowing all of us to moor ourselves to something bigger than ourselves. Personally, I am a no good rotten sinner. I’ve sat through a lot of sermons and read a bunch of books to improve on my heatheness, with only marginal success. I like scholarship, but what has always “awakened” me most are the handful of people I have known who “just have it.” They are “spirit filled” and just have a countenance about them that pulls one towards them and our Creator. Wally is unflappable, happy and joyful. The son of a bitch is funny. His environment is one of calm waters and gentle ocean breezes. He is learned and erudite, but it is not his knowledge that makes him special, it is his being.

Carr’s Hill

Since FW has been sick, I think I will refrain from telling stories about him. I won’t tell the story about when FW passed out nekid, and the boys at St. Anthony Hall carried him over to Carr’s Hill and dropped him on President Hereford’s door step and how the president of the University had to step over a nekid blob of Wallyness upon leaving for work the next morning. It wouldn’t be right for me to tell that story. Similarly, it wouldn’t be right for me to mention anything about Wally’s penchant for introducing himself to families of complete strangers at restaurants, inviting himself to sit down with them, and then eating their food. That would be unkind and inappropriate under the circumstances. Nor will I mention anything about our many road trips to Carolina, Wally’s behavoir, nor his dating philosophy. In fact, I have never heard of the concept of “Go Ugly Early.”

So folks, Wally has had a good year. Admittedly, he’s goofy looking, see pictures below, but he is on the mend and doing remarkably well. I would say something sappy and corny like “I am proud to have him as my brother,” but we Smith men are strappin hosses and don’t say weenie things like that.

Fat Wally and I During Navy Seal Training. We were the youngest graduates ever from Seal School.