Giver.(Remembering WFB)(William F. Buckley, Jr.)(In memoriam)

WHEN I began working at NATIONAL REVIEW in December 1960 as a part-time college student, I had yet to meet Bill Buckley. Then one afternoon I got summoned to his office--not only to meet the great man, but to do him a favor. Bill needed someone to take his Nash Rambler and pick up a friend of his, Sir Arnold Lunn (the gentleman who invented slalom skiing, which he introduced to the 1936 Olympics), at the airport and drive him to meet Bill in Connecticut. Then I was to drive Sir Arnold back to New York. For performing this task I was to receive the (then) princely sum of $50, money I very much needed. It was the beginning of a beautiful 45-year friendship with Bill.

Bill was truly one of nature's noblemen. He was also a man of a deep and unshakable religious faith, which was manifested by his Christian charity: doing for others whatever he could, whenever he could, with no one ever knowing about it. There was the Vietnam veteran blinded by shrapnel who wrote to Bill asking him if there was a Braille edition of NR. There wasn't--but Bill flew the young man to New York to visit one of the leading ophthalmologists. The operation was successful, and restored enough of the young man's vision to enable him to navigate without the usual aids. ...