Goodbye to My Favorite Groucho Marxist

 

A makeshift memorial to longtime media relations assistant and official scorekeeper at the 2019 ACC Championship at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. (Photo by Ethan Hyman.)

© By Tim Peeler, 2019

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Memorial Service for Bruce Winkworth

I remember distinctly the first day I met Bruce Winkworth. It wasn’t in person. It was in the pages of Technician, the NC State student newspaper. I was a freshman in engineering, from the western territories of the state. He was an older student who wrote about baseball, his version of humor and left-leaning politics. In one of the first editions of the newspaper I ever read, he wrote about North Carolina’s change in legal drinking age from 18 to 19. Obviously, it was an unpopular legal move on a college campus, especially among the freshmen and sophomores. But Bruce was all for it, and he said so in an Op-Ed column. “The last thing I need to do is fight with some sniveling 18-year-old know-it-all redneck drinking his first beer for a spot at my favorite bar.” Wait a minute, I thought: I'm a sniveling 18-year-old know-it-all redneck having my first beer.

How dare he? Bruce was a cantankerous columnist, a Hippie leftover in his 30s at that time writing to mostly Reagan-era teenagers. But he made me laugh. He wrote a column once about not being able to swim. He said the only thing he knew how to do was the brickstroke. He hated Jesse Helms, Richard Nixon, the acoustics at Reynolds Coliseum and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He loved Mark Twain, and a well-written sentence.

He called himself a Groucho Marxist. To his credit, though, he was always accepting of others’ opinions. He once wrote: “I don’t mind if someone disagrees with me, no matter how wrong they may be.” I didn’t agree a lot of times, and I always assumed I wouldn’t like the old geezer wearing that Brooklyn Dodgers hat in his column mug if I ever had a chance to meet him in person. I was wrong. Bruce couldn’t have been nicer to this sniveling 18-year-old hayseed from Lincoln County. We worked together on the Technician sports staff for years, hung out at parties and tolerated each other’s eccentricities. He helped me, criticized me and told me when I was flat out wrong. I still disagree with him about that. When I left NC State to write for various newspapers, I would often run into Bruce at games or events. We talked baseball, music and NC State athletics. When we worked together in the NC State media relations department, he was my hypercritical editor. He would red-line every other word, write an explanation of why I broke every grammatical rule in the AP Style book and dispute every conclusion I made in writing. But he would send it back to me in an email, always with the same words: “Great story…” After Bruce retired and I left media relations, we tried to have lunch every other week or so, to talk about baseball, music and NC State athletics. He always showed up with a handful of home-burned CDs.I probably have 500 or more of them in my office.

He always talked about his wife Rita. She had been one of my first writing teachers at NC State, and she was always kind to me. He always referred to her as "your former teacher" in our conversations, letting me know that she still had an interest in the stuff I was writing. She had been his teacher as well, and they were married on Nov. 1, 1986, a date we all remembered because he missed the end NC State-South Carolina football game when Danny Peebles caught the game-winning catch after time expired. Bruce listened to almost all of that game on the radio standing outside the church with his brother Doug, but finally had to be coaxed down the aisle before the game was over.
 
Two Christmases ago, I knew something was wrong with Bruce when he went nearly three weeks without returning my phone calls. Rita eventually emailed me telling me there was some bad news, that Bruce had been in the hospital after being diagnosed with lung cancer and having a tumor removed from his brain.

Initially, it was sad because he couldn’t remember how to use his ipod, or his computer or his phone. Bruce without music was like baseball without innings. It just wasn't right. I found him a simple MP3 player and we started loading songs from his vast music collection, an effort to return life to normal. He fought really hard, improving every day and eventually returning to his old curmudgeony self.

He worked so hard because he knew he needed to take care of Rita, who dealt with breast cancer for more than 35 years. Nothing made Bruce happier than walking with her in the Parade of Survivors at NC State's Hoops 4 Hope/Play4Kay game. When Rita died just a few weeks ago, however, Bruce had a choice. To fight his cancer or mourn his wife. Subconsciously, I think he chose to mourn, realizing that life without her was too empty.

I think that was a beautiful thing, for both of them, to be so connected after more than 30 years of marriage.

NC State baseball coach Elliott Avent.

I have only one regret about my time with Bruce. He promised me that one day we would sit down one day and he would give me his list of Top 10 Elliott Avent baseball ejections. I knew a few of them: the time Elliott was recovering from a concussion, was thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes and didn’t know it until some three innings later. The time he got ejected at home plate – while turning in his pregame lineup card. And everyone knows the famous limping spin move. Bruce said none of them would be in his Top 20, and I was anxious to save those for posterity. Until his last few days, Bruce tried to keep me straight. He hated that I wrote correctly, but still sometimes spoke like that hayseed from Lincoln County. He was at Duke Raleigh Hospital, in a rapid decline and we were talking about some things, like one of the falls he endured while still at home.. “It was the morning I woke up and found you laying on the floor.” “Lying.” “No, it’s true, Bruce, you had fallen and I tried to help you get up.” “I know that, goddammit, but I was lying on the floor, not laying.” The last night he was able to really communicate with me, he called me both Nancy Pelosi and Davey Johnson. I don’t know which one hurt most. As I was about to leave, his nurse came in to check on him. She could tell he was in real pain, unable to move, not happy to be in an adjustable bed. “What’s bothering you the most Mr. Winkworth?” “That Donald J. Trump is president.” That was the last sentence I heard him say, and it makes me laugh every time I think about it. The act of mourning, I think, is mostly about regret. Of not saying something you should have said. Of not being a good friend. Of wishing you had done just a little more. I don't think I have any of those regrets with Bruce, who was my friend whether I saw him every other day or ever 10 years. So I am not going to mourn him, but I sure as Hell will miss him. I'd like to say something about the people who time with Bruce in his final weeks. Obviously, his brother Doug, who came down from Cape Cod after Rita died and for Bruce’s final month. The concept of brotherly love runs deep in their family.

And Tonia Jackson, a former co-worker of ours in athletics media relations. She lived nearby, and was willing to help on a moment's notice. Bruce told her many times over the last few weeks, "You're my ace."

Annabelle Myers, who became more than Bruce's former boss over the last six weeks. She was a devoted friend and comforter when he needed it. She gave him a kiss on the head when she left one morning, and he told her “I want another one of those after dinner.”

And Coach Avent, who Bruce called his "brother in baseball." Elliott visited him before practice and after games.He made sure Bruce knew that all he had done for the baseball program over the last four years was appreciated and that he was loved by many. One day, he had three of his senior players take Bruce lunch at Transitions, to talk a little baseball. It was the last sandwich he enjoyed.

The four of us texted each other every day with updates, observations and concerns, which allowed us to make sure Bruce was rarely ever alone while in the hospital or at Transitions LifeCare. But thank-yous are not in order for any of us. We were only repaying Bruce for the many things through the years, in his own unique and crochety way, to make us better, to make us smile and to make us think.