Honoring William McGee of Santa Rosa, California

HONORING WILLIAM McGEE OF SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA-HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY (Extensions of Remarks - March 04, 2004)

HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY OF CALIFORNIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2004

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor William McGee of Santa Rosa, California, who died Sunday at the age of 79 of injuries suffered in a bicycle accident. Bill was an experienced and avid bicyclist as well as long-distance runner, bread baker, counselor, poet, photographer, philosopher, and retired junior college instructor.

This list does not begin to describe the warm, wise, and caring person that Bill was to his wife, Alice Waco, and to all of us who knew him. Friends will long remember the twinkle in his eye and the special comfort brought by the delivery of his own home-baked bread and a few lines of poetry in time of need.

Born in Marquette, Michigan, in 1925, Bill, whose father died when he was four, took a bakery job six years later to help support his family. His interest in spiritual matters drew him to attend a Catholic seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1956, and spent most of his priesthood at the University of Michigan in Houghton. There he founded the Newman Center to serve Catholic students.

Later Bill attended UC Berkeley on a Fulbright theology fellowship, eventually joining St. Benedict's Deaf Center in San Francisco. Bill's life changed dramatically when he met Alice Waco, then a nun at the center. They soon discovered that they were soulmates and both seeking answers outside the church. They married in 1974. That same year, Bill began teaching Latin at Santa Rosa Junior College where he was known for singing Latin chants to his classes. He also earned a master's degree in alcohol studies and coordinated a DUI counseling program at the school until his retirement in 1992.

Bill also worked as a substance abuse counselor at the Orenda Center in Santa Rosa, and with his wife Alice, was active in the Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center.

Bill used his photography, and especially his poetry, to express his feelings about life. Cards to his friends combined both arts with his own unique humor and spiritual philosophy. One of Bill's poems, To Be An American, exemplifies his view that love and hope help us meet the complexities and challenges of life. It reads in part:

To be an American is a place beyond boundaries beyond vision, but a dream a possible dream:

when boundaries are dissolved
where perfect is growth
where imperfection is ours sometimes in a most perfect way.

To be an American is a place where everything and everyone is not yet, yet even though our brightest victories applaud sciences of war and peace in the echoes of machinery still making bombs and guns.

We are peoples mixed, melted and split with differences that make pork in government, doves and hawks outside of it, and truth come late.

To be an American is to grow in confusion of a world inside part of a world called these United States . . . in a milieu of men, women and children.

Where differences are different and similarities are never different; that each and everyone needs very little in life; a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to die, and a lot of loving in between.

Bill is survived by his wife Alice Waco, brothers Jim and Chuck McGee, and sisters Alice Tyler and Pat Ley.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to honor William McGee. He was a man whose spirituality was matched by his compassion. He was a unique individual whose life brimmed with kindness and creativity. I join with Bill's family and many friends in grief over his loss and happiness in having known him.

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