When we find ourselves in times of trouble, the words of wisdom come from the places we know best. I grew up on a block with only two houses, a triangular block in Duluth’s Lakeside neighborhood bisected by an alley that made sure the neighbors in those two 1920s mini-foursquares would know each other well. To my family’s immense good fortune when we arrived on the block in the mid-90s, those neighbors were Bill and Helen Sandwick, and that block was the cradle to which I returned time and again, a second home where we could always drift back into a childhood realm free from the burdens of a world. I knew things couldn’t stay that way forever—in fact I learned this at age eight, and the Sandwicks hosted me the night before that fateful day, with my parents at the hospital with my brother—but back on that block with the Sandwicks, it felt like it could.

It certainly won’t ever feel quite the same now, as Bill passed away this past weekend. Bill grew up in tiny Sandstone, Minnesota, but in his youth a band from Liverpool captured his imagination, and the world opened up to him. The Beatles set him on musical journeys, behind the Iron Curtain and into spontaneous conversation on an Amtrak from Chicago to Minneapolis, where he met the British girl he’d bring back to Minnesota. Bill and Helen raised Sara, three months my senior and a companion through all my school days, and Tim, four years our junior and always right in our neighborhood mix. Together with the Kleins from across the avenue, we formed a little community unit, five kids who turned out alright, helped along by a steady string of cookouts and movie nights and uproarious laughter.

And that is what I will remember most about Bill: his perfectly calibrated humor. He was a master of the dry one-liner, some ridiculous quip that would lead us all to pause before doubling over in laughter. He made an art of gentle mockery, laser-focused but never mean-spirited, an absurdist twist that landed just about every time. We all acquired nicknames, and I remained “Kowl,” as toddler Tim pronounced my name circa 1996, until the last time I saw him, a breakfast about a month before he passed in which I reunited with the whole clan for the first time since before the pandemic. Bill told naughty jokes, he drew marvelous caricatures, and he knew just how to press his kids’ buttons.

Beneath the endless good humor was a man who saw the world with fundamental decency and basic common sense. Their house was one with no hint of pretense: just a cozy place where I have always been welcome to stop by. For all his time on stages Bill was a homebody at heart, and the friendships he made were deep ones. He and Helen could laugh away with visitors for hours and hours, delighted and drama-free. What more could anyone ask for out of a neighbor?

For most of his adult life, Bill made his living doing what he loved to do, playing his bass for local bands, and though I am sure that schedule taxed him over time, it did nothing to diminish his joy in good music, from his beloved Beatles to Elton John to the Moody Blues to Rod Stewart and a long list of other stars (not all of them British!) who they’d play and see on tour. And even though the Beatles have been apart for over fifty years now, they still managed to put out a new song in the final weeks of Bill’s life, and his family was able to serenade him with “Now and Then” as they prayed for a recovery that would not come.

On Sunday afternoon the Kleins and I went over to clean Bill and Helen’s leaf-strewn yard, and suddenly the whole crew was out there again. One of us was missing and at first the words did not come easily, but we were and that was what in fact mattered, our numbers in fact swelled by Sara’s husband and Tim’s partner. Helen was a model of grace, laughing and telling stories, happy to be among friends, finding her way to peace. And if in the days that come that peace does not come so easily, Colorado Street will always be there for her, and for all of us. For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see. Rest in peace, Bill, and let it be.