goodbye, tillman

I’m all screwed up today because my alarm clock automatically sets itself for Daylight Savings Time and… non-Daylight-Savings-Time, and it’s just old enough that it runs under the assumption that we still use the old April/October dates for that instead of the new March/November dates, so it set itself back at sometime during the night and I got up this morning thinking it was an hour earlier than it actually was.

Last week, Tillman Cornelius passed away. He was the head of the City Recreation Department for what seemed like forever and everyone who grew up in my town up until he retired most likely participated in one of his programs, talked to him, got hugs from him, and probably got yelled at by him at least once. My own father was and in some ways still is more of a concept than an actual figure in my life, but when I was growing up, there were men who stood in that gap for me in different ways, who were role models and mentors and people I knew cared whether I succeeded or failed, and Tillman was one of them. My mother worked for the City government too, albeit in a different department, and he let her know that if I ever needed something to do or if I needed a job, he was there.

And he was there. He almost seemed omnipresent. He was at every game, he was in the schools, he was at City Hall, he was in that City car, driving around from place to place and if you saw him coming, you knew you’d best be acting right. Whenever he saw me he would holler my name gleefully. He was a busy man but he always had time to ask how I was doing, to check and make sure I was keeping my grades up in school. He hired me on numerous occasions, and because of him, I have counted and sorted hundreds of flyers (one for every student in the public school system) many times over, I worked at the ice skating pond even through a winter when there often wasn’t thick enough ice to skate on, and I helped supervise a summer day camp. He let me know when I had done well and didn’t mince words when I could do better.

The best thing is, I know that my story is far from unique. I know that for kids who grew up in this town, he was a fixture, and he hired and fired and yelled and praised. But I don’t think anyone would argue that he cared. And I don’t know about you, but I think growing up is a pretty tough process and sometimes it’s essential to the whole thing just to know that someone actually gives a damn about any of it. For my part, it’s no exaggeration to say that there were times when Tillman kept me going. He was tough and demanded excellence and didn’t baby anyone — if you were old enough to work for him, you were old enough to do it right — and I thank him for it. I went to his funeral today, along with hundreds of others. He was an important part of my life and someone I always wanted to make proud. He was also completely one-of-a-kind and I know I am blessed to have known him.

Goodbye, Tillman. In the years since you have retired I have missed you and I will continue to miss you. You were a great man and have left behind a great legacy of generations of kids who grew up knowing they could count on you to be there for them. Thank you for being there for me… you have my love and respect forever. May I always strive to make you proud.