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Bill Webb's Story
(continued from Biography)
All through grade school, Billy rarely missed
a lesson and often bicycled over three miles down Milwaukee sidewalks to get there.
In third grade, Billy planned an after school bicycle trip to Kiddietwon at Capital Court with Rosemary. He was
so excited as they bicycled to his house to get some money for the rides. No one was home when he got there, but
he looked at the kitchen clock and suddenly remembered it was piano lesson day! He ran outside to the awaiting
Rosemary, gave her half the money and told her she would have to go to Kiddietown by herself. He pedaled his little
twenty inch bicycle from his home at 73rd and Hampton all the way to Ochs House of Music at 42nd and Fond Du Lac.
He never knew what Rosemary did that day because she never talked to him again! Alas, a love lost, yet a love gained.
When the age of reason came - this would be early adolescence when a child begins to understand abstract reasoning
and thinks he has it all figured out - Billy became Bill and was transplanted from his public school life and friends
into a private,college preperatory school called Country Day. He became depressed and quit piano lessons in despair
and lonliness. One small yet significant incident describes the change that came over him, and the beginnings of
the spiritual connection that eventually became his spiritual path in life...
"At age fourteen, I was transplanted to in a nouveaux-riche subdivision called Lac Du Cours in Mequon, WI.
Alienated from friends and old neighborhoods, I began to explore the surrounding woods, lake and swamp. I had a
peculiar fascination for the swamp as its' deep woods center was said to be inaccessible, and this provided just
the challenge my lonely rebellious soul needed.
"On a cold overcast autumn Saturday, I found myself hopping from tree root to tree trunk toward the center.
After a few minutes, I looked up into the sunless sky and realized I had lost my sense of direction. I tried to
look back from where I came, but all the trees, standing above the brackish water on their little mounds of soft
moss looked alike. Panic set in as I looked wildly in all directions, and at the sky for some sign of direction.
"I remembered moss grew on the north side of trees, but all the tree trunks looked to be covered in moss on
all sides. Gloomy hangings of God knows what surrounded me and seemed to get thicker. On the move again, I jumped
from mound to mound, the mounds getting smaller and the water more prevalent. I leaped too wide an expanse and
slipped off the next mound. In water just below my knees, and with arms flailing, I struggled to step to the next
mound with no success. My feet were stuck and the more I struggled, the deeper I seemed to go.
"The water rose above my knees and, this supposedly brave adventurer began to scream in panic. In the flash
of a moment, I felt a great pressure on my shoulders as if something or someone was trying to push me down into
the muck. Terror shot through my body like a shiver of iced lightening and I screamed, "No! No! No!"
In that same instant, I felt light as a feather, and with renewed energy, gave my leg a big hoist, it broke loose
and I stepped onto the soft moist ground almost effortlessly.
"I turned around in time to see an indefinable shadow of some sort whisk away across the swamp. I turned away
in fear and my eyes immediately fell upon a signpost through the trees ahead. I followed it easily back to the
street.
"I never returned to the swamp. Even in winter when it and the lake froze over I only skated near the edge.
But I often wondered whether I had escaped an attempt by something evil to do me in, or if the foreboding I felt
was a dark angel that motivated me to gain my freedom."
The next fourteen
years became an age of dark pressure pushing down on Bill, pushing him
deeper and deeper into darkness, until he finally jumped out into the
light.
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