Bob Wills: An Eagle Among Men
By Chris Price
Originally published in Hang Gliding Magazine, August 1977. © 1977 United States Hang Gliding Association.
Bob Wills co-founded Wills Wing in 1973 with his brother Chris. He won the U.S. National Championship in 1974 and was one of the most influential figures in early hang gliding. Bob died in a filming accident in 1977 at age 26.
I have known Bob Wills for over twenty years. In today's mobile society it is rare for a person to have the same friend through childhood and on into adult life. A long friendship gives life more meaning. It also hurts more when a friend like Bob Wills dies.
I can remember when I was eight years old arguing with Bob whether or not animals went to heaven. He argued then that all living things go to heaven. I can remember spending the night at his house and having Maralys Wills trying to kiss all of us good-night, each one of us throwing a huge fuss. The trips to Disneyland and the beach in his grandmother's Cadillac. The orange fights in the orange groves. Underground forts. I can remember in his bedroom as a small boy all the filters and oxygen equipment for his asthmatic condition. Once one of his rabbits had worms growing in its head and looked terrible. I wanted to whack its head off with a shovel to put it out of its misery — and did just that. Bob could not believe I killed it, because, he said, I had no way of knowing whether or not it might have gotten better … or where there's life there's hope.
Bob was a forgiving, optimistic person who never held a grudge. He would always look for the best in people and refuse to accept the worst. Once, a dealer who was already copying one of Bob's gliders showed up from out of state on the pretense of learning as much as possible about Bob's newest model so that he could sell them better. I knew the guy was just going to copy the glider. I wanted to physically throw him out of the shop. Bob believed him when he told Bob that he would not copy it. Bob even let him stay at his house. Bob felt that if we threw him out, it would make it that much easier for him to justify copying it. Bob also pointed out that he could always just order one and copy it anyway, but he would never be able to copy the attitude that went behind the glider. I was right. The glider was copied. Bob was right. The copy was missing some things that made Bob's glider easier to fly … and the attitude. Bob and I were arguing about some employees at Wills Wing that
Bob Wills 1950–1977
Larger Than Life
By Maralys Wills
Maralys Wills wrote a particularly appropriate eulogy for her son's funeral. It was beautifully delivered by Bob's grandfather and is printed here for its poignant insight to Bob's personality and lifestyle.
This isn't the first time for us.
Everything that has happened in this eternity of time since Bobby died has happened to us before. The shock. Overwhelming grief. Disbelief. Numbness. The sense of life's impermanence and the fragile nature of the human body. Poignant recollections of moments past. And immediately, the rush of love from friends, helping to stem the tide of grief.
We cried for Eric, seemingly without stopping. Gentle, defenseless Eric.
It was different for Bobby, and at first we didn't know why. We loved him just as much — missed him just as much. Without him, whose goals have been our goals, whose life's work has been our life's work — nothing will be the same.
Yet there was another difference, and it came to us, suddenly, what it was. Bobby was, and still is, it seems, larger than life.
Everything he did in his twenty-six years was on an oversize scale … longer … bigger … smarter … better … stronger … higher … and now the image of him looms so large it is almost impossible to accept his death. He will appear, any moment, on a new contraption, a bigger and better hang glider, a faster motorcycle, a taller bicycle, a noisier truck. One cannot cry long over a son who doesn't seem to be gone. Tomorrow, next week, next month, perhaps, we will believe it.
He started out oversize — eleven and a half pounds — and his strength and determination and sometimes pure, irritating stubbornness made him a winner in areas most people don't know about. He was the ping pong and chess champion of his high school. He won the Sophomore tennis tournament. He swam the most laps under water and earned a varsity letter in swimming. He won a second and third place two days running in the Elsinore Grand Prix motorcycle race where a thousand men competed, and he built the tallest bicycle ever seen in Orange County. He jumped a motorcycle farther than any human has ever jumped a motorcycle before. He shot oranges out of his carbide cannon probably farther than an orange has ever traveled through space. Most of you know he held more endurance records, altitude records, and won more hang gliding championships than any hang glider pilot ever. In every meet he ever entered, except one, he was in the top ten. One year he was the British, Canadian, and American champion simultaneously. In hang gliding, even before he died, he was a legend.
He has left a legacy of unusually fine hang glider designs. Everywhere we look in hang gliding there is something Bobby did first — or best.
We will see him for years in movies, "Playground in the Sky", "To Fly" at the Smithsonian, "Five Summer Stories", "Skyriders", "The Eagle Within" at Busch Gardens, and T.V. commercials.
We have cried for Bobby before and will again. But not as much as we might. Because we cannot believe he is gone — this boy who still seems larger than life.