[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 27 (Thursday, March 4, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E305-E306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            HONORING WILLIAM McGEE OF SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 4, 2004

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor William McGee of 
Santa Rosa, California, who died Sunday at the age of 79 of injuries 
suffered in a bicycle accident. Bill was an experienced and avid 
bicyclist as well as long-distance runner, bread baker, counselor, 
poet, photographer, philosopher, and retired junior college instructor.
  This list does not begin to describe the warm, wise, and caring 
person that Bill was to

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his wife, Alice Waco, and to all of us who knew him. Friends will long 
remember the twinkle in his eye and the special comfort brought by the 
delivery of his own home-baked bread and a few lines of poetry in time 
of need.
  Born in Marquette, Michigan, in 1925, Bill, whose father died when he 
was four, took a bakery job six years later to help support his family. 
His interest in spiritual matters drew him to attend a Catholic 
seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 
1956, and spent most of his priesthood at the University of Michigan in 
Houghton. There he founded the Newman Center to serve Catholic 
students.
  Later Bill attended UC Berkeley on a Fulbright theology fellowship, 
eventually joining St. Benedict's Deaf Center in San Francisco. Bill's 
life changed dramatically when he met Alice Waco, then a nun at the 
center. They soon discovered that they were soulmates and both seeking 
answers outside the church. They married in 1974. That same year, Bill 
began teaching Latin at Santa Rosa Junior College where he was known 
for singing Latin chants to his classes. He also earned a master's 
degree in alcohol studies and coordinated a DUI counseling program at 
the school until his retirement in 1992.
  Bill also worked as a substance abuse counselor at the Orenda Center 
in Santa Rosa, and with his wife Alice, was active in the Sonoma County 
Peace and Justice Center.
  Bill used his photography, and especially his poetry, to express his 
feelings about life. Cards to his friends combined both arts with his 
own unique humor and spiritual philosophy. One of Bill's poems, To Be 
An American, exemplifies his view that love and hope help us meet the 
complexities and challenges of life. It reads in part:

     To be an American is a place beyond boundaries beyond vision, 
           but a dream a possible dream:
     when boundaries are dissolved
     where perfect is growth
     where imperfection is ours sometimes in a most perfect way.

     To be an American is a place where everything and everyone is 
           not yet, yet even though our brightest victories 
           applaud sciences of war and peace in the echoes of 
           machinery still making bombs and guns.
     We are peoples mixed, melted and split with differences that 
           make pork in government, doves and hawks outside of it, 
           and truth come late.

     To be an American is to grow in confusion of a world inside 
           part of a world called these United States . . . in a 
           milieu of men, women and children.
     Where differences are different and similarities are never 
           different; that each and everyone needs very little in 
           life; a place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to die, 
           and a lot of loving in between.

  Bill is survived by his wife Alice Waco, brothers Jim and Chuck 
McGee, and sisters Alice Tyler and Pat Ley.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to honor William McGee. He was 
a man whose spirituality was matched by his compassion. He was a unique 
individual whose life brimmed with kindness and creativity. I join with 
Bill's family and many friends in grief over his loss and happiness in 
having known him.

                          ____________________