Older than God
Today we attended the funeral of our friend and neighbor, Bill Burton. He passed away on December 27. Bill lived directly across the street from us and was a very entertaining guy. When we moved in to our house about four years ago, the first neighbor I met was Diane (to the south). She informed me that Bill was “older than God!” - I think he was (a spry) 89 at the time.
Back then he was walking around a lot, to the store, to the church, and to visit friends. Apparently he had just stopped riding his bicycle. However, no matter how well he seemed to be, he would always answer “Waiting to die!” or “Waiting for Zella (his late wife) to come get me!” if you asked him how he was doing. Recently, his health had diminished and he wasn’t leaving the house anymore. Bryan took him pancakes every Sunday morning and spent about an hour chatting with him. He loved to tell stories, and he loved Lawrence Welk. His sons told some really funny stories at his funeral - my favorite was that they remembered him calling them a “dumb cluck” when they did something stupid.
The walls of Bill’s living room were completely covered with his oil paintings. I mean, they were arranged in there like a jigsaw puzzle. And they all had the same color scheme, even though they were of all different scenes and locations. So it was kind of overload to see all the paintings crammed in there, but I was fascinated by them. He liked to paint red rocks and arches, straight out of southern Utah. However, he inexplicably put them in the middle of lush green jungles and forests - some with prehistoric-looking trees. And the sky and water were the same shade of turquoise blue. And the animals - moose, deer, birds. They are fantastic! He would buy frames second-hand and then create a painting to fit the frame. And he would add to the paintings over the years - you could see bits of paint on the frame where he had touched up the paintings. He called painting an “old man’s hobby” - he started when he retired over 25 years ago.
I really wanted to ask him for one, and eventually I got Bryan to ask him. Bill kindly agreed to give me one. When I went to pick one out, I was really drawn to one particular nature scene - it was pretty big, possibly his biggest one. He happily gave it to me and egged me on to pick another. I chose a smaller one that was tall and narrow to hang by our door. He was so excited to give them to me. Later when I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about one more, a painting with a group of red cardinals in it. It seemed really greedy to ask for another, but when I did, he happily gave me that one too. So I am lucky to have three Bill Burton original oil paintings. He also gave my friend Camillia a painting that has a really cool handmade frame - he carved a chunky frame, made a mold from it, and then cast it in plaster. And painted it silver. It is seriously awesome.
I will think of him each time I look at these paintings. We will probably upgrade the frames eventually, but I have no doubt that these paintings will hang in our home(s) forever. There is a lot more I could write about Bill but I’ve already written too much. We will miss him a lot.
1 comment January 2nd, 2008
