He knew a secret and he shared it with me.
The year was 1968. This was the year that would become known for the opening of the Hemisfare tower (Tower of The Americas) and the World's Fair being held in Texas. San Antonio was a sizable growing town with promise, yet its modest infrastructure made it an underdog to host such an event. The challengers and nay-sayers were many, almost as many as the summer mosquitoes along the river, and their view was somewhat understandable. After all, it was here just over a century before, Davy Crocket had fought that one last battle. In the grand scheme of things, it was still a pretty young town.
Having the World's Fair here simply seemed impossible. However, impossibility with persistence and even a little faith has a way of producing solutions. In this case, one of the solutions came through a Texan named Lyndon. You see, as it turned out Lyndon took notice of the challenge and the rest became history. Lyndon Bangs Johnson was a Texan and he was in the Oval Office. The World's fair was heading to Texas. The World's Fair was heading to the Alamo city, but It wouldn’t come without a cost.
Among the many challenges ahead, bringing safety to the over seven million people expected at The World’s Fair was a daunting and difficult prospect. The Texas Department of Public Safety was one of the agencies called to assist.
Texas DPS housed the best of the best who were always ready to accept the call. The man whom I would have come to call Uncle Billy was one of them.
Billy was an incredible person. His life took shape from being the neighborhood paper boy to being a young man serving in the US Army, finally finding his real calling in law enforcement. He had a few years as an Abilene policeman followed up by joining the esteemed Texas DPS working out of rural Ballinger. I like to think of him out there, working, driving his patrol car down the farm roads busting through the howling highway winds while exercising his duty in Runnels county. He was only there for about 18 months.
That’s when he would get the call to run those World's Fair patrols in San Antonio. It was only supposed to be a temporary assignment, but young patrolman Billy Joe Haun would not return as planned.
57 years later his story continued. I recalled a scene I’d never before seen, only heard.
It was a beautiful spring night in the heart of San Antonio at Breckenridge Park. I had no hint of the proximity of tragedy I would soon realize.
It’s a sizable park one could get lost in if not careful. I was there with my family setting up sound equipment with several friends. We were about to have a little outdoor evening worship service in a park pavilion. It was just beautiful!
The pavilion was surrounded by lush green grass. Just a few yards away our children were playing by a quaint walking bridge that crossed over The San Antonio River. It hadn’t been long after the pandemic and on top of the beautiful night, it was just nice to be out with people. I was clueless of the window into the past I was about to look into.
The service began and we sang for hours with multiple bands. As the evening winded down, I was last up by myself behind the piano, then I walked out with the crowd and began to sing with them. It was just our voices in the breeze.
We were singing “How Great is Our God.” The cool air just held us like heaven's arms as we sang over and over, “You’re the name above all names, worthy of all praise, and my heart will sing…how great is our God.”
There was a unique quiet as the service came to an end. Peace was immeasurable. The children were still playing as one was leaving by the river. I was putting equipment away. Then all of a sudden, with great force, I realized where I was standing. It was like being called to attention by a voice human ears can’t hear.
I was startled. Instantly I could see. I was standing right at that horrible scene from some 54 years before. I hadn’t made the connection before. I was at the exact spot where Billy had died. I recalled an article I had seen in the paper and the limited stories I had heard from family.
excerpt from article from The San Antonio Express News from 1968
“Billy Joe Haun, a Department of Public Safety Patrolman from San Angelo assigned to a routine Hemisfare patrol force from the DPS in Ballinger was killed here Wednesday night at about 6:30 PM. His patrol car went out of control at Breckenridge Park, struck a bridge, and landed upside down in the San Antonio River. Witnesses had said his car swerved several times before taking out 12 cedar posts. Then he went about 400 feet before going off the bridge.”
The realization of the gravity of the incident in that moment was paralyzing. The children were still playing as we had been singing the songs of Heaven for hours right off the bank of that river where Billy waded through the wreckage out of the waters on his way to Heaven. It was a startling moment that left me trembling and speechless. They say time is not a thing in heaven. Scientists say time can bend back on itself. Some folks just simply say that time itself can heal.
One thing is for sure. We only know in part.
It’s been three years since I was at that river. It's been 57 years since Billy’s accident there. It’s been so long, but the loss remains as familiar as the weather in Texas will be this spring. We will live with its beauty and find safety when the storms roll in. As with any loss, Billy’s loss was his family’s loss. We felt it more some years or less depending on the not so funny way the years sometimes play out. The sacrifice of Billy and all the great men and women that lay their life down in service affect their whole family for generations to come. We’re living in both good seeds sown and the hardest moments where we're lost. It’s a family affair and there is no getting around that so when we're lost, together, we will be found again.
Billy’s brother, my dad, was reunited with Billy in 2007. He never got over the quick and awful way he lost his brother until then. Losing Billy was too much for him after losing their mother a just a few weeks before. I saw pictures of my dad from before I was born, before Billy was gone. His eyes had life and light in them I never saw when I knew him. In the loss though, we walked, and the grace of God remained through the good and through the bad. In the end, when it was all said and done, Billy’s loss didn’t just drive him to heaven, it drove us there too.
I will never forget that night singing the songs of heaven and seeing Billy there. It took first responders 45 minutes to get his pinned body out of the wreckage, but It took only a simple breath of heaven to put him and all of us into the arms of God.
I think about Billy in that river. I think about him in heaven, but most of the time, I think of him back out there in Runnels County. He’s working. It’s late at night. I can see him clearly through the window of his patrol car.
He’s going a little bit down highway 67, but spending most of his time driving down those narrow moonlit farm roads off the beat and path. There’s a cotton Gin on one side and a little down the road there's a dairy farm on the other. What’s the one thing I see that stands out above it all? He’s smiling, and it’s not just a casual smile. It’s a very warm peaceful smile. Without a doubt, I know why.
While he’s 27 years old and he won’t grow any older, he's already figured out what most never do. He surrendered to a great truth that he fully possessed, lived, and would die according to, and the truth was this; that joy and happiness and true fulfillment in living and dying were not dependent on living for yourself at all.
Joy and happiness were dependent on living for others and looking out for others. He figured out peace was dependent on being willing to give your life for others and when duty called, he was willing, and he did.
In the future as the years go by, I’ll make sure to keep checking in on those farm roads and on Billy from time to time. I’m sure it’ll go like it always does. I’ll find him still out there off the beat and path. He’ll roll down the window, ask me how I’m doing, then smile and say, listen man, no matter how the days are going, you live like I lived, and if you have to, you die like I died. But no matter what, make sure, even up to your very last breath, you give others your all. Never live for yourself. Never stop serving others. Then he'll tip his hat, give me that smile one more time, and I'll watch him drive away.
by Billy Haun
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