Heading towards a hurricane. Involving himself fully, emotionally and physically in all things he aspired to. Never wanting to miss out on the action this world provided. This had been an excellent man, I thought, as Education professor Bill Goding’s daughter Lois Uptigrove related a story about an intense hurricane, when Goding jumped into his Ford Fiesta and headed straight for the eye of the storm.
“He grabbed a low-lying bush to anchor himself with the best view,” she said at last Thursday’s memorial service. “And later when we asked him why he had driven towards it, he told us simply, ‘that was where the action was.’”
Action indeed. With careers in the US Navy in World War II–where a bombed “enemy” sub turned out to be merely a whale–at Sears Roebuck in Chicago, and as a chaplain at a Baptist university, Goding led a life full of eclectic experiences until he passed away on Oct. 4 at the age of 82. But it wasn’t until here at the University of Calgary that he found his true passion: teaching.
“Bill loved to teach,” his daughter continued. “I remember one time when I was helping him with a group of eight-year-olds and beforehand he had left red ribbons on some of the desks in the class. He asked me to pass out candies to only those children with red ribbons on their desk. None of the children
who hadn’t received candy said a word though many of the ones who had, asked why their friends had been passed over. Bill asked them how it had made them feel to be left out and the reply was obvious. Then he asked them how they would feel if they had been passed over simply because of the colour of their skin. And the reactions from these kids is something that I will never forget.
“My daughter asked me after Bill had passed away, ‘What are we going to do without grandpa?’”
What if more people in this world were like Bill Goding–unafraid of life, of having new experiences, living new lives? Inquisitive. Poetic. Inspiring. The world… the world would be a heck of a lot different.
“He never said goodbye, he always said ‘Peace.’ And he wasn’t talking about the peace of a leaf on still water or on the early morning of a winter’s day. He was talking about the peace in the centre of one’s soul.”