Steven
Griggs | Free Spirit™
True Freedom: My Friend Willie Wrote
The Book.
Written by Steven Griggs | stevengriggs.com
“We don’t know what comes after death, we can hope and
believe that there will be something, but it doesn’t really matter. Whatever
our beliefs, it really has nothing to do with death or the afterlife, it is simply a way to help us make it through life” Steven Griggs
“The death of a friend sometimes seems to make them more present in
your life than they were when they were alive.” Steven Griggs
On
November 30th,Willie, my best friend from the age of 9 passed
on. He was ill for the last 4 years but basically incapacitated and on
hospice for the last 2 months. I spent a lot of time with him and I was with
him when he drew his last breath.
He
had many other friends, although they came less and less, but I was his oldest
friend and besides we were blood brothers from the beginning. One for all,
all for one.
We
were outliers. We could relate to any group in school but we didn't
really "belong" to any group.
We
were, deep down, wild....... and we carried knives.
We
didn't play Indian, we WERE Indians and we still are.
We
had Indian names (he was Okta and I was Tanyo) and special words that we
could use to communicate with each other that no one else understood. We
camped out as much as possible. We had a Tipi (I still have one today that
can sleep 10 people).We were Boy Scouts (Eagle Scouts) and would do our
Indian dances for schools and hospitals.
We
were definitely weird.
I
went on to pursue my goal of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30. He went
on to become a Hell's Angel. And he really played the part!
We
went to our 10 year class reunion on his extended fork chopper. I wore a suit
and drove, he wore his leathers. It seemed normal to us......
Willie
lived a wild life but he was the most free and real person I have ever known.
He didn't do anything he didn't want to do.
And I mean not a thing!
Ever.
He
had no fear and didn't give a hoot about laws, rules, or convention.
He
never married although he had plenty of women. He was not the marrying kind,
if they got too close or wanted a commitment, he moved on. He lived the life
of a gold miner in the summers, camped on the banks of the Yuba River, among
others, and he was a bartender during the winters. In between he was a
biker doing bikerly things……
At
the end, his apartment looked like a museum. His walls were covered with
100's of knives and hatchets, hanging on nails or in frames. He had Indian
artifacts, ropes, bead work, cowboy hats (with the most perfect cowboy
creasing). It was mind boggling. I counted two hundred knives on one wall.
He
had scrapbooks documenting his entire life. He had pictures of us in our Tipi
at the age of 10. Who took those pictures? I don't remember there ever being
a camera, who even had a camera at that age...... but there we were doing the
Eagle dance!
Willie
was a throw- back. He looked like an old sour dough prospector at the age of
ten. And he never really changed, except that his hair was eventually down to
his waist and so was his beard!
He
had created a life he was comfortable in. He had no aspirations to be wealthy
although he did strike it big one summer when he and his partners collected
$350,000.00 in gold! That went fast and over the next 30 years he never made
more than enough to cover his costs for food and fuel. His overhead was always
low (key to living a no stress life).
He
had three Harleys at one point but sold them to help his mother bail her
house out of foreclosure. He hadn't owned a car in many, many years.
It
is not easy to live that free and probably only 1 out of 10,000 people could
live his kind of life, maybe a lot less.....
He
never had a mortgage or a car (bike) loan. He didn't have credit cards. Never
owned a house or any property. He never had a wife or kids. No real bills,
just for utilities and food. He had no insurance plan or retirement. I don’t
know if he even filed tax returns. He did what he wanted and found enough
money to keep everything going.
He
kept being himself.
Can
you imagine? Could you do it?
When
I look back at the chaos and stress I’ve gone through in my life in my quest
for wealth (I used to think money equaled freedom)…... The ups and downs of
my career, the financial challenges, the many homes and cars, toys and
“stuff” I’ve owned, the relationships
and marriages……
Wow….!
It
has been an interesting ride.
Today
I have a great wife and 5 kids and 4 grandchildren. I can't imagine not
having my kids and, now, the joy of my grandchildren.
I
know my lessons caused some damage and probably aged me in a lot of ways but it
was those twists and turns along my path that brought me to who I am today
and helped me see the truth about money, freedom and the system we live in.
At
4:30 in the morning on December 2, I awoke with a sentence that kept
revolving in my mind. It was about Willie floating down a river. I knew I
could never remember it so I got up. I couldn’t find a pen so I went into
another room and wrote it on my phone.
I
didn’t think it up or imagine it, it just came out in a stream and I wrote it
down as fast as I could.
Here
it is:
I lie,
still and quiet,
here but not, the
pain is now more outside than within
and I know death is
closer rather than further.
I float,
on a slow moving
river, gently but surely
and I ride.
My vision seems
shorter unless I swim to the surface and stare out.
I remember the
faces but only in a swirl of memories,
Here, then not,
fading,
into the swirl of
thoughts that mingles with feelings.
I feel the pull of
the river,
deep and
persistent.
Each time I hear a
voice, it's further and further from my shore
until the call from
inside is the only thing I hear
and I float.
Ever deeper,
until I am no
longer separate from myself
and the sun warms
me
and everything that
was or is becomes a gentle blanket that shrouds me.
And I drift no
more.
William
H. Danielson, December 7, 1949 – November 30, 2015
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