Many years ago, I had the pleasure of working with Bill Gerke at 33’s. Bill was an excellent fireman, with an easy goin’ manner and a light-hearted attitude. A good guy to be around. Bill was always involved in outdoor activities, such as runnin’ and bicycle ridin’.
Bill then planted the seed in my head to run a marathon and actually talked me into trainin’ for this monumental event. So, for many weeks we met off duty and ran ourselves into the ground. It wasn’t the best way to spend a day off, but Bill made it bearable and reminded me that L.S.D was the key factor in our trainin’ regiment. I was somewhat excited, because I figured I’d be so whacked out that I’d forget about the pain in my achin’ knees and hips.
Well, unfortunately the pain wasn’t goin’ to be cured that quickly or easily. Bill told me that LONG, SLOW, DISTANCE was the secret to our trainin’ routine. We didn’t need to run a blisterin’ pace, but if we maintained a comfortable easy pace we would live to cross the finish line.
Although we didn’t set a world’s record, we did complete the race and lived to eventually tell our children about the experience. The lesson I learned from this experience was, never, and I mean never, will I ever run another marathon!
Bill eventually went out to the Valley and worked at 87’s, 91’s, 98’s and 107’s. He also started building homes. I think he may have started the “House Flippin'” craze. I saw one of the first homes he built for himself, which was bigger than big and just as nice. I would have been happy to retire in that house but Bill had bigger plans. He went on to build a few more, each of which were sold.
Many years passed and I sort of lost touch with Bill. After Bill retired a few years ago, he and his family moved to Boise, Idaho. A few months ago Bill got in touch with me, sendin’ me a picture of him and some other retired and active firemen that are also livin’ in Boise. This group, affectionately known as “The Golden Boys from California,” gets together each month for breakfast. Actually, I made up that name up, but they are offerin’ a $10,000 reward for anyone who has an updated road map showin’ the way back to California. I told Bill he don’t need no stinkin’ road map because they now have this thing called GPS. He told me he has one of them contraptions, but he said the antenna on their roof don’t pick up the satellite signal. Go figure.