I’ve mentioned before that I’m a tuba player. Have been since sixth grade. Kept it up all through college, and have recently started again with a community band here.

What I might not have mentioned is that I was pretty good at it. Truly. I thought seriously about majoring in it for a long time but wimped out. Turns out the tuba has limited power as a chick magnet whether you’re playing Flight of the Bumblebee on it or not. I believe Weird Al Yankovic experienced something similar.

When I enrolled at Auburn, they offered one music scholarship per year to non-music majors. I auditioned for it, and ultimately won it. (Like I said, for an 18-year-old, I was kickass.) The man I auditioned for was Dr. Bill Walls, Director of Bands.

Dr. Walls was friendly guy in his 50s with insane eyebrows. He was very funny and could put you at ease right away. He had a way of correcting your mistakes while complimenting your performance, so you felt like you were just evolving as a musician in a supportive environment. But then, he was a trombone player by trade. Trombones and tubas are natural allies, so maybe I just got his good side. Perhaps he relieved stress by verbally abusing French horn players when no one was looking?

In any case, he was a hell of a director. Not just on the podium, but in picking music that suited his musicians. Part of the requirements for that scholarship was performing in the wind ensemble, which was a small group of maybe 30 of the top players in each section. The other tuba player, Jerry, was a sometimes-backup for the Atlanta Symphony — I remember him being very good, but mostly I remember him being a pervert when he would talk about Cindy, one of our clarinet players. (Cindy was very pretty. She had also gone to my high school and I had known her since I was 13. Odd that I never told Jerry that…)

Anyway, that group was fun. I looked forward to rehearsals. The music was impressive and challenging and when it came together, we felt like we’d accomplished something. That was only possible because of Dr. Walls.

Over the next few years, Dr. Walls became less involved with the band. He sort of gradually retired so he could sit at his lake house and and teach music education students from the local community college. The wind ensemble was taken over by Dr. Johnnie Vinson, who was fine and a good man and director, but I never got the sense that small groups were his thing. The wind ensemble grew to about 80 people,it  became a full symphonic band, and the music became less challenging.

By the time I graduated, Dr. Walls wasn’t around the place much anymore. He’d come by for the occasional football game and would be sure to say hi, but we didn’t see him often.

Some 12 years later, I returned to Auburn in an “official tuba player” capacity, as I played in the Alumni Band for the Homecoming Game. Dr. Walls was directing the Alumni Band that year. I walked up to him, and he turned and said “Hello, Christian” and then told me a joke he’d just heard that morning. He asked about my mom, asked if I was still a tech writer, and told me he was glad to see I was still a tuba player. We swapped more jokes for about 10 minutes before he had to leave, but even into his 60s he still had that same quick, slightly wicked sense of humor.

I just learned that Dr. Walls died on Tuesday at the age of 77, and I find I’m more messed up about it that I would have expected to be.

See what I mean about the eyebrows? I’m surprised they got him to wipe the smile off his face long enough to focus this picture.

That’s more like it.

Auburn has set up the Billy “Doc” G. Walls Scholarship Fund. His family is asking people to donate to that fund in lieu of flowers. I can’t think of anything more fitting, except maybe burying his trombone with him.

Goodbye, Dr. Walls. Thanks for everything. I hope you knew it was a real pleasure.