Song for Uncle Willard

Thanks so much for your kind comments and likes on the tribute post I wrote for my mentor, Uncle Willard (aka Dr. Bob Manning of Davidson College). You are wonderful and dear friends.

Many of you said you’d like to hear the song I wrote in his honor, so I have made a simple recording of it and you can hear it on Soundcloud. If you send me a direct message, I’d be glad to send you a annotated lyric sheet (PDF), since I’m not with you to tell you the stories behind the song in the traditional Jeni way :)

Last week, I spent a day, while on tour up in Chicago, reading about 17th century French scientists because Uncle Willard was writing a book on that topic when he went on up to the picnic. It seemed very fitting that such a remarkable and tireless teacher would continue to inspire me to read more and seek more. To you, Uncle Willard: how glad I am for my heart so that you can live there, always.

Song for Uncle Willard: Scientist, Philosopher, and Mentor
© Jeni Hankins 2015

If I could live in your study,
and read every book that you owned,
I might find a note in the margins –
a theorem of where you have flown.

‘Cause I’d like conjecture,
I’d like to work you into my proof,
and offer you a hypothesis
on how much I will miss you.

Add a girl who ran down the stairs
wearing two crȇpe paper wings.
Subtract any frowns, if she chanced to fall down,
‘cause we never dwelled on those things.

Add a thimble of stardust to share
to the power of three Yogi Berras.
Divide any doubts ’til the proof shakes on out.
Je pense, donc je suis and etcetera.

I hear you are mingling with stardust,
which proves that Fermat was correct.
Solutions we find are not always kind
when we wish they were magic instead.

Are you up there with tireless angels
moving the spheres all around?
I’ll be right here, sweeping sawdust and tears
’til your famous last theorem is found.

Uncle Willard

First thing in the morning on Sunday, I discovered that my college mentor, Bob Manning, who had been a second father to me while I was at college and beyond, went on up to that picnic much too soon. I could never get away from calling him Dr Manning even when I lived with his family, so he found a way around that by having me call him Uncle Willard – a name he made up on the spot.

He understood me so very well and knew how much I loved to make things up, so he would often write me stories about outlandish characters and I would respond in kind. We kept up this ever-changing fictional cast of characters in fits and starts for years ever since graduation. For the last few years, he liked to start his letters to me with: “Dear Country and Western Legend” which made me smile every single time.

I am glad for all of the little things that will remind me of him like baseball cards, star maps, spaghetti, the strap button he put on my guitar, the Grinch (he had a whole Grinch costume), and wood shavings. If you love some one, call them or write them, right now. I wish I could hear his voice and hug him just one more time.

I've just written a song for Uncle Willard, so those are some fresh lyrics behind the photo of his grandfather who entered the coal mines around Pittsburgh at a tender age, but got out and became the mayor of Hayes, Pennsylvania. Bob Manning --  Physicist, Astronomer, Woodworker, Humorist, Baseball card collector, mentor, and friend -- you live on in the hearts and minds of your students.