Filed under: News, Interviews, Profiles
"Please Don't Disappoint Me."
That's what the 92-year-old mom of Ted Williams, the golden-voiced homeless guy with the feel-good story of the year, said to her son at the emotional televised reunion.
And that has stayed with me.
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Will we look back in six months or a year and consider Williams' discovery and new-found celebrity status a success?
I know people (even family members, if you want to be honest) who have become productive citizens after flirting with petty crime, drug use and general stupidity for too many years.
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But there was something about how after years of not seeing each other, Julia Williams was reminded of unhappy memories after being reunited with the her clean, lemon-scented son.
Watch the reunion here:
The kind of bitter memories (just think of those wild arrest photos of Williams that have been released) that would lead a mother to beg, "Please don't disappoint me."
If I were a betting man, I would lay down a few bucks on Williams' name being on a police docket in the not-too-distant future.
[EDITORS NOTE: Amazingly, about an hour after I sent this blog to my editor, a story crossed the wires that Williams had been briefly detained by Los Angeles police Monday evening, after getting into a yelling match with one of his daughters.
I am sorry to have been right about Williams' run-in with the authorities.
However, I will give double-or-nothing it won't be his last.]
There was something about how his mother publicly pleaded with him, though, that reveals dozens of attempts of Williams to clean up -- and dozens of failures.
If Williams, 53, blows this chance, he may as well give it up for good, because it seems the entire world is reaching out to make him a success.
Aside from the many news media appearances, Williams was hired to do voice-overs for Kraft products. It's ironic the first ad voiced by a guy who was homeless just a week ago appeared during the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl Sunday evening.
Williams has also fielded job offers from the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, NFL Films and has even been offered free work from a dentist offering to fix up his jacked-up grill.
It would be wrong to begrudge Williams his good fortune, wouldn't it?
But is it fair that other deep-throated announcers who haven't fathered nine kids, gotten addicted to cocaine and alcohol and been involved in crimes -- guys who basically have been doing the right thing for all their lives -- aren't getting sweet offers from food companies, basketball teams and professional sports leagues?
Nope, it's not fair, but who ever said life was going to be fair?
Either way, I hope Ted Williams keeps his nose clean ... and heeds the words of his mother.