A Eulogy For My Friend, Bill Sharpe

Bill Sharpe was my friend. That doesn’t distinguish me from any of you here today. We share this loss together. There are no words that can be spoken in a few minutes to do justice to Bill’s memory. I’m here today to tell you about the Bill Sharpe I knew...about thirty years ago. That’s how long I’ve called Bill one of my closest friends.

From the time I first met Bill, it was clear he was driven by the desire to make a bigger difference in life. You would always sense his presence in the room, even in 1978. If there was an opportunity for him to lead, rather than follow, he would seize it. His confidence hurtled him through life like a rocket without a rudder. He was always climbing, or trying to. And he always believed he was right...even when he wasn’t.

I was very fond of hearing him laugh “Well, there’s truth to what you’re saying.” That was the best you were going to get when you disputed his “rightness,” but he still wanted to give you credit.

For me, Bill was more than a friend, he was a tremendous influence.

I credit Bill with nudging me into politics, putting the first canoe paddle in my hand, for making foreign travel seem easy, for introducing me to pickled okra, for illustrating the infinite value of a friend’s loyalty, and most of all, for showing me what it means to never give up, no matter how many times you fail.

And that, my friends, is what makes Bill’s death so difficult to fathom. While his successes were many, so were his losses. He was no saint. He made mistakes. He would never discuss them. He would just carry on. I’ve never believed him to be someone who would willingly hurt anyone. Quite the contrary, Bill was usually the first to lend a helping hand to anyone in need.

Political figures, as you might imagine, are always in need. Whether they were from Pinellas County, or just passing through, there was a good chance that Bill would be there to meet them, to counsel them, or to support them. Oh, and that little nudge I mentioned earlier? I was mighty impressed when Bill personally introduced me to John Glenn, somehow prompting him to say that I should get involved with politics full time.

Then there was the night Bill showed up at my door with a six pack and said, let’s go for a ride, I need to talk with you. It was weeks before my first marriage. At the end of a dark road, Bill put our friendship on the line and tried to convince me not to do it. Somehow he knew I was making a mistake. Damned if he wasn’t right. But our friendship grew even stronger.

Of the thousands of memories I have of Bill, my favorites are sure to be found somewhere among the hundreds of miles of canoe trips we took together. Our first trip was the Alafia River in the spring of 1981. There were just three of us, a bit crowded for a single canoe, and though we were in our late 20s, we acted like young school boys, tipping the canoe and splashing each other. It opened a door to years of adventures that included climbing a pyramid in Mexico and hiking the Inca Trail in Peru.

Our canoe group grew to more than two dozen, traveling all over Florida to paddle for days on a long river. Bill was always our leader. For those unfamiliar with the challenges of canoeing for several days, finding an overnight camp site is the hardest thing to do.

In charge, and true to form, Bill always thought he was right. “It’s just around the next bend in the river,” he would declare. “That’s what you said about ten bends ago, Bill,” I would point out.

He’d just laugh. “Well, there’s truth to what you’re saying.”

Our group took one last canoe trip, notably and intentionally without Bill. I don’t quite remember the reason, but we were mighty proud of ourselves doing without “always right” Bill. The thing about it? While the trip went  flawlessly, it just wasn’t the same without him. The group never paddled together again.

Bill held a number of interesting jobs in his life that always  demanded self confidence. Always putting his name and his reputation on the line. He was selling condos on the beach when I first met him. He moved on to selling stocks and bonds. Then, in a wholly unexpected twist, Bill turned in his suits and ties for jeans and t-shirts to sell chicken wings and beer, and build something of a legendary blues venue in a setting I’ll generously call rustic. Bill transformed a tiny bar in the country called Mr. Pub into a sizable establishment with an acre of land out back where he promoted concerts that would attract hundreds of people. The locals came to love him, dubbing him Mr. Bill. The name stuck. His success did not.

I recall eleven places that Bill called home. One wasn’t really a home. And it isn’t the most recent one you may be  thinking of.

Bill had suffered another one of his failures. He was living in a pop-up camper in an RV park just outside of Tampa. He was about as close to homeless as any of us would imagine. Years later, when he founded the Tampa Epoch, many charged Bill with being an opportunist seizing on a loophole. Looking back, and knowing what I know, I think that experience was what really drove him. He often said of the homeless, this could be any one of us. The truth is that he knew that better than most.

Bill got the hand he needed to move into an apartment. He adopted Charlie the cat that same week. While holding on to a job selling RVs, he got back on his feet and began his online marketing company, determined as ever. Most of you know the rest of the story as well or better than I do. It was another couple of chapters in Bill’s life that read much like he had always lived it: Trying always to do good, have a good time, and always be right.

I don’t have the credentials to help you deal with the terrible sorrow Bill’s death represents. And while we were still close these past ten years, others certainly grew closer to him. Knowing him for as long as I have, I cannot account for what he determined was so wrong that it came to this. He was no stranger to failure or loss, and there is not one of us here who would not have extended our hand to help him, just as he would have come running if any one of us had called him.

What I have to ask is what do we take away from this experience? It has to be something more lasting than to console each other and celebrate our good fortune for calling Bill our friend.

What comes to my mind is what would Bill have us believe? What would he want us to know. How would he want us to live on without him? I can’t know for sure, but if he came to my door with a six pack in his hand and said, let’s go for a ride, here’s what I think he would tell me:

Always believe in the goodness of others, and do what you can to help them, however you can.

Always believe in yourself, no matter how many times you fail. You can always start over again.

But Bill wouldn’t stop there. He would go out on a limb and risk our friendship to say: Don’t assume you know someone as well as you think you do. You can never really know another person’s pain. You have to listen carefully. You have to ask. You really have to care.

Because, if you do, you won’t let this happen to someone else you love like we all loved Bill.

Well, Bill, there’s truth to what you’re saying.