Remembering Bill Craddock

I first met Bill Craddock at University Avenue School. I remember him in seventh grade touring the schoolyard beneath the oaks with kid giant Lee Baumgartner in tow, acting out scenes from "Of Mice and Men" as George and Lenny. Most of Billy’s exhibitions bemused the rest of us, maybe even Lee, who faithfully repeated, “Tell me about the rabbits, George.” In those days Billy was a cherub-faced boy with a big head and little body.

Another indelible memory of Billy is from the eighth grade. He did a drawing for the yearbook's advertiser section. It featured a man being fitted for a suit, probably at the local department store, Chrislow's. While the customer faced the mirror, the salesman behind him pulled slack tight in back, so that it fit perfectly in front. Both had toothy smiles, one of deception, the other delight. That one got past the editors.

Billy was capable of amazing transformations. In early high school as his physique took shape, Bill acquired the lean look that stayed with him. He became a beach boy, bleached hair and all, and would cut school to go surfing. His affability seemed to immunize him from adverse consequences; I don't think he was ever suspended from school. He had access to things forbidden, including motorcycles. After riding his Ducati 250 I was seduced forever. His bedroom was black, and even then filled with collections of occult objects. He studied the Salem witchcraft trials.

I don't know when he began running with the Night Riders, but by the time we started college, he had taken on a new persona. We were both enrolled in the Humanities Program at San Jose State and sat together in a discussion group that met in the mornings. Billy came to class with black leather, chains, and the hair and beard that became his convention. He looked uncannily like the familiar Sunday school depiction of Jesus. His chopper was usually parked right outside on San Fernando Street. The professor, a noted art historian, was fascinated with Bill. But Bill had interests elsewhere - he was gathering material for a novel.

One day in the winter of 1965-66, I went with Bill and another old friend to the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose. Before going in to look at mummified antiquity, I was surprised to be offered a joint, a first. It was another Craddock exhibition, subtly planned and boldly carried out.

In the spring of 1967, Billy took an entourage to the Haight-Asbury. It was the beginning of the notorious Summer of Love. I remember being astounded at the colorful variety of mutants suddenly on the street; it was as if the world had become a circus. I could see then it was familiar already to Billy. In retrospect, he was a prototype. His associations with Beat literati had preceded this.

Bill once told me that he was fascinated with paradoxes, which was evident in his cartoon for the annual in eighth grade. He had a keen sense of irony, and he lived it during the halcyon years of the flower children. There were self-styled gurus and pretenders everywhere. In the midst of them stood Bill, the guy in black wearing chains and skull patches, whose sincerity and kindness were a refuge in that landscape of self-absorption and hollowness.

I saw Bill occasionally at his place in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the early 70's - the last time was probably in 1974. In the summer of 1976 my family and I were preparing to move to Memphis. I was already gone when my wife, who only knew Bill from a brief introduction, encountered him as she pushed a baby stroller down Massol Avenue in Los Gatos. He pulled his Harley to the curb and gave her a nod and a smile. That was Bill, and it was the last we saw of him.

Over the years I thought of him frequently and told many, without coming close to capturing his essence, about my underground friend who was published by Doubleday at the age of 22. I always believed I would see him again and share the memories. Last spring I was in Los Gatos and was set to ride with Tom Haverly to Santa Cruz and meet Bill, but something didn't work out. When I learned of his death, it made me sadder than I thought I could be over the loss of someone I hadn't seen for thirty years.

Doug Pulling
March 2004