Walter Smith (aka Fat Wally)

Today is Fat Wally’s birthday. He’s the one on the left, I’m the good looking one. Y’all text him and wish him a Happy Birthday (804-840-1137). A few words about Wally. The son of a bitch could read the newspaper when he was 3 years old. At Virginia, if he ever studied, it was by drinking a 12 pack of beer and reading a 1,000 page book while simultaneously watching Monday Night Football. He went to Law and Business School at the same time, while working a 40 hour plus work week waiting tables, and of course playing the pinball machine at Foods of All Nations while others were in class.( Once his bride, Snowflake walked into FOAN and witnessed FW beating the pinball machine with his fists and calling it a CHEATER).

As I write this, he is teaching a very popular adult bible study that folks come to from miles away. Wally is no pious prig stick in the mud. He’s fun. He can still rap all 14 mins and 46 sec of Rapper’s Delight. Except for Dean Smith ( ex communist coach of UNC), he likes everybody. Wally has always had life figured out. He knew how to get that edge to win. One summer when we were both in law school, we were tennis partners, and we never lost a match. Wally was not an over powering athlete, so he developed the “cheap, backspin, drop shot.” Same in basketball. He did not have my height or 42″ inch vertical leaping ability, but he was a cheap dirty bastard who could slap the ball away from the most gifted player. In baseball? You guessed it, he was knuckleballer. He was a math whiz and always played the odds. We would roll to Chapel Hill and there would be oodles of girls. I would go for the best looking girl at the party, deploying my wily charms and inevitably strike out at closing time.

Wally? Let’s just say, ……his approach was different and leave it at that!!! Wally has never met a nickel he didn’t like. Back in the early 70s, I was 14, he was 16, we went to buy beer at a store in Montross. If y’all remember, this was a big deal, that involved intensive strategic planning and was fraught with anxiety. I was doing cover work on the outside, Wally goes in, shows the cashier his fake ID, the sale is consummated. I am thinking..”whew,” “we are going to get out of here alive,” and THEN…… Wally drops a nickel on the floor! Instead of leaving the crime scene, like most NORMAL people would do, Wally gets on his hands and knees and starts searching for the nickel. I swear to Almighty Jesus, this went on for 30 mins, while cops and our parents’ friends were walking in the damn store. Doggedly determined, he found the nickel, and we eventually got away. I am sure he still has that nickel and it has been earning interest for the last 44 years.

As goofy looking as Wally is ( take another gander at pics above), he was able, somehow, to land “Snowflake” the hot looking Virginia Cheerleader who once appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Ripley’s? They have more children than Mother Hubbard. I lost count after they broke into double digits. Well, anyway, that’s my brother Wally. I give him pretty high marks for being a good big brother, but for Godsakes, don’t tell him I said anything nice about him. He’s not on FB, but here is his Linkedin page. https://www.linkedin.com/in/walter-smith-005260a/