I met Bill Sheldon on the side of a steep mountain in the Yukon where we were both looking for Dall sheep. Neither could believe that the other was there, such an effort it was to get to where we stood. We were both a little disappointed to have someone disrupting our solitude. We found the sheep that day and we also found a friendship based on the love of the outdoors, wildlife and photography.

I learned a lot about Bill over the years. I heard about how his family owned the Mepps lure company; lures which brought me many years of fishing pleasure during my youth in Colorado. Bill ran the company for a number of years before he retired at the ripe old age of 45. I remember him telling me about the fictitious spokesman for Mepps called Shep. He told about how at fishing conventions, people would occasionally tell him about how they’d had a great fishing adventure with Shep, a man that doesn’t exist, in Alaska or somewhere else. Bill gave me a belt buckle with Shep’s name inscribed on it, which is one of my prize possessions.

One important moment in Bill’s life came when, as a senior in high school, he pole vaulted 12’6” to win the most important track meet of the year for his team.  I learned about his brilliant academic career at the University of Arizona, where he majored in girls. Then there was the time Bill and some of his friends, who would go on to become judges and other respectable pillars of the community, went out of the bathroom window, rather than pay for their meal, at El Charro Mexican restaurant in Tucson. I met his loving wife Barb, his two daughters and their families and many of his friends. I stayed in his beloved cabin in Wisconsin and fell in love with his beautiful dog Rikka.  Bill loved to come over to my property North of Tucson to photograph birds and other wildlife. I could see how persistence was part of his nature as he offered to buy my property on many occasions in spite of my best efforts to let him know that it wasn’t for sale. We spent a lot of time in the desert near Tucson. One of the more memorable projects we shared was photographing Harris Hawks on a nest. When we had just finished constructing the high metal tower on which we were going to place a hide to use to photograph the birds, a dust devil, or mini tornado, descended upon us. I was at the top of the tower and Bill was halfway down as it began to topple in response to the unexpectedly violent wind. Bill was able to jump off but I rode the tower down from the top, able to write this story only because a Palo Verde tree blocked my fall.  I remember spending a couple of nights with Bill in a tent in the upper Peninsula of Michigan. Some of the odors and noises that issued from Bill those nights gave me empathy for his wife, and a desire not to repeat the experience.

I remember when Bill’s hands started shaking. At first this was attributed to “essential tremors”. When it was recognized as Parkinson’s disease, Bill just kept going, in response to this and various other health problems that plagued him. I never heard him complain. I never heard him ask for sympathy. He just kept going. This was good and bad depending on the context. For example after a certain point, driving with Bill became a terribly nerve-racking experience. But that was Bill, he just kept charging on. The last time I came to Tucson I was surprised to hear that Bill’s condition had deteriorated and that he was taken to a care home. It was even more of a surprise that I was there when he called his wife Barb and, based upon what he was saying, she began to realize that she was losing him.  When I went to visit him at the home, by chance, he was talking about me when I got there. His message was that I was good at what I did but I was cantankerous. I think he was right, at least about the cantankerous part, because I’m almost as cantankerous as he was. I stayed in his house at that time and took care of his dog, Rikka, while Barb and he were in Phoenix. I remember looking around as I was getting ready to leave their house, seeing the legacy of a once vital man. His bicycles, his fishing, skiing and camping gear, his photographic equipment, his  photographs on the wall; artifacts of a life devoted to the outdoors, photography, his friends and family. That was when the loss hit me the hardest.

As I write this homage to a fallen comrade, I can only hope that he is up there with Shep, fishin’ and photographin’ and having a good time and waiting for his beloved family and friends to follow him. Adios amigo!

John Cancalosi, Ithaca, New York, February 18, 2013