It's been a heavy week amid the Independence Day goings-on, trucking and business news, and all the rest, but start this week's Overdrive Radio episode with a song with a whole lot of joy behind it. It's sure to get the spirits up, as its writer, singer and performer -- the great Bill Weaver -- told the tale of its origins to me in 2016. The track, "I'm Rollin'," from Bill's "Every Mile I Drive" record, was inspired squarely by the always-headed-home aspects of work OTR, since the moment he conceived it.
Yet putting the podcast together ahead of a week away from the desk for me, hearing the track also, if I'm being honest, brings a bit of a tear to the eye. Bill Weaver passed away Monday, June 30. For longtime Overdrive contributor and Weaver's fellow trucker-songwriter "Long Haul Paul" Marhoefer, the news came by way of a mutual friend, Tony Justice, who shared his own recollections of Bill.
Justice’s words I suspect ring out loud for so many who knew Weaver: “I can't even begin to find the words to express what he meant to me,” Justice said. “Best word would simply be friend, family kinda friend, my best friend. ... Hard telling the miles me and ol’ Bill covered while trucking and talking on the phone, a few hundred thousand easily, or how many times he made me laugh. He is irreplacable, and will leave an empty spot in my heart that will never be able to be filled again.”
And Justice finished this way: "Till we embrace again on the other side I’ll be jamming your music, brother. This aint good-bye, it's a see-you-later.”
[Related: Hazmat tank-hauling owner-operator Bill Weaver's 'Number Three,' delivered as promised]
Bill and CarolAnn Weaver, pictured in 2018 around the release of "Burnin' the Old School Down," Weaver's second record.
CarolAnn Weaver said she’s planning a memorial service for Bill likely for early August, and had Weaver’s International pride and joy in the shop for service looking at a likely sale fairly soon. It wasn’t due for service, she said, yet it’d been sitting for a year. Questions about the truck CarolAnn referred to Taylor Barker, fellow trucker-songwriter and also a great friend to Weaver. The truck, CarolAnn said, was Weaver’s pride and joy.
CarolAnn offered these words to mark his memory.
“Bill was very special character who impacted everyone he met,” she said. “He never met a stranger and greeted everyone with open arms of compassion. I am so thankful and blessed that I had him in my life for 16 years and he helped me become a better and stronger person. He helped me find my way back to God, and to me that is priceless. I want to say thank you to all his fans that supported his love of music and appreciated his honest, heart-written words he shared through songwriting. He had a brilliant mind, so smart yet humble. I kid with everyone that he was my encyclopedia.”
CarolAnn went on to reference something Tony Justice also noted in his recollection of Weaver. It’s true that he said it near every time I ever spoke to him in person, that's sure, most often delivered right before you parted ways: “Remember to shake a stranger’s hand. You might accidentally make a new friend.”
Thanks to him for being one to me, that's certain.
[Related: He was Wild Bill to us]
