Former Lieutenant Governor Wilder dies at 88

I was sorry to hear that John Wilder passed away earlier this month.

In case you didn't know, Wilder, who served as Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee for an incredible 36 straight years, died shortly after midnight on January 1, 2010. He had suffered a stroke a few days earlier.

An institution at the Tennessee legislature, Wilder was first elected head of the Tennessee Senate -- a position synonymous with Lieutenant Governor -- in 1971. He remained in the Senate, and head of the Senate, from then until 2007, when a surprise vote by a fellow Democrat rewarded the Lieutenant Governor position to Republican Ron Ramsey of Blountville.

After losing the Lieutenant Governor position, Wilder finished out the remainder of his Senate term but did not run for reelection to the Senate in the fall of 2008.
Wilder was also an unusual person who made a striking impression on just about every person he ever met, especially late in life. He had an unusual southern accent that reflected his upbringing in rural west Tennessee in the 1930s. Even into his eighth decade, Wilder was an avid cyclist who was often seen pedaling around the streets of central Nashville. He was a licensed private pilot. He also spoke in sayings, known as "Wilderisms," that often left people scratching their heads; referred to himself in the third person; and made frequent references to the "cosmos." What he said might mean one thing to one person and another thing to another person.

I have often been told that Wilder was a much different person as a young man, but I never knew him then because I am too young to have met him then. The first time I met Wilder was in January 1997, and I'll never forget it. As a brand new reporter covering the legislature I wanted to meet all the important people around. I saw Wilder standing in the hallway and went right up to him.

"You and I have something in common, governor," I said.

"What's that?" he answered.

"Well, we both are flyers. I used to fly in the Navy, you see."

"What did you say, young man?" Wilder said.

At first I thought I had said something wrong. On the contrary. The Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee took me under his arm and led me away. As we headed along, lobbyists, interns, and others in the crowded hallway parted, leaving us a clear path down the hallway, past his secretary and into his office. I sat in a chair opposite his huge desk, and he sat in a chair behind it.

For a few moments there was near silence. I couldn't believe how quiet it was; it was as if I'd passed a force field of silence en route to the inner sanctum. The only noise I could hear came from the tic-tic-tic of his clock. All the while he was bent over, doing something I couldn't see (shining his shoes maybe). I began to wonder if he'd forgotten I was in the room. Finally, after about forty-five seconds -- or maybe it was 5 minutes, who knows? -- he looked up at me and started talking.

"Let me tell you about Jaybird," he said.

For the next hour or so, he told me about flying. He told me about how many hours he had flown, and he told me about why he liked to fly. It took me a while to piece it together, but I eventually figured out that "Jaybird" was his plane, that it was a twin-engine Comanche aircraft, and that he would rather be flying than doing anything -- including sitting at his desk and presiding over the state senate. I'm sure along the way he asked me about my time in the Navy flying airplanes, but I'm not sure if that made an impression on him. After all, I was a reporter, and he was Wilder, and I was there to listen.

I wish today that I had written down all of the stories that he told me that day. As it is, the only one I can recall -- and it was a pretty good one -- had to do with one time he took former governor Ned McWherter on a flight. McWherter, you see, is not a small man. One of the things pilots have to do when they plan a flight is to estimate the weight of the aircraft in order to determine how much fuel they need for the flight. When Wilder asked McWherter how much he weighed, Ned threw out a number (I think it was 250 pounds) that didn't seem quite right to Wilder. As I remember the story, Wilder gave him a strange look and said something along the lines of, "Guvnuh, if you're lying about your weight, the plane's gonna fall out of the sky and we're gonna die!"

"Aw, put 300 pounds down then!" McWherter snapped.

This quote, and other attempts to quote him really can't do the man justice. John Wilder had the most unique accent of any I've ever heard. It was a cross between a genteel Southern accent and a working class Southern accent that reflected the strange reality of his background. Wilder was white but grew up in a part of Tennessee that was predominantly African American. As best I can tell, the kids he grew up with were the sons and daughters of the people who worked his family's farm -- and, in Fayette County, these were mostly black people. So his accent sounded nothing like, say, the blue-blood accent of his longtime colleague Douglas Henry of Nashville.

This strange trait was one of the keys to his success, or so I came to believe. Wilder was actually a very wealthy man, with considerable business interests that ranged from agriculture to banking. But he didn't sound that way. He sounded like a poor farmer. People like that. Voters like that.

I know people who worked for Wilder, or who reported on Wilder, for a lot longer than I did, and they can tell hundreds of stories about the man, as opposed to the half dozen that I can tell. But here are two others that I'll never forget. At some point during my time covering the legislature, I tried to walk in during a secret meeting of legislative leaders that was occurring in his office. "The meeting is closed," his aide told me at the door, which didn't seem quite right to me. So I told him that I wanted to talk to Wilder. "Well, all right," he said, and went to fetch his boss.

I was doing my best impression of an angry reporter, so when the Lieutenant Governor got to the door he decided to do his best impression of any angry state senator. Next thing you know, he and I are having a rather unpleasant exchange about whether it is legal, or ethical, for the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee to be meeting in secret. Then I made reference to the so-called "Sunshine Law" in Tennessee, which (theoretically at least) says that government officials can't meet in secret. For some reason he didn't appreciate my tone.

"Let me tell you somethin," he said to me. "We in du sunshine, and you in du shade, and you gonna STAY in the shade!"

He then turned around, started to walk away, and then stopped himself in the doorway. "You gonna quote me on that, aren't you?" he asked.

"You bet I am," I said. And I did. I wish they had stuck that quote on the top of the front page, but unfortunately they buried it on page B-8, right beside the weather. I think Wilder was as disappointed as I was.
I realize now, and did then as well, that the side of Wilder that I generally saw was the amusing Wilder, the loveable Wilder, the quirky Wilder. The Wilder that I saw all the time was the one who would clear his throat in the loudest manner possible -- right into the microphone -- and then throw out some quote about "the senate being the senate" or "Uncle Sam taxing taxes" or about "the cosmos," which was sort of his way about talking about God. I know second hand that Wilder was a wily leader and that he could, and would, do just about everything in his power to keep his position. For instance, during my time as a reporter, he was heavily criticized, and rightfully so, for his role in privately promoting, then publicly repudiating, a state income tax -- a series of events that spelled the end to many legislative careers.

Nevetheless, that's not what I'm going to remember about the man. I will instead remember with fondness the time I took a group of inner-city kids to the legislature and that he talked to them about what it was like to pick cotton by hand in the 1930s. I will recall the time he told me in the back of the Senate chamber that he wanted to vote for the state lottery to support (Senator) Steve Cohen but didn't want to unless he absolutely had to because his wife Marcelle was against the lottery because she thought it was against the Bible. Yes, I will recall that and the many other times he told me things that -- let's face it -- no normal politician would dare tell a reporter because I'll be darned if he didn't trust me so much.

I'll also recall how incredibly accessible the man was. One time I had a visitor from California to entertain and I took him down to Legislative Plaza. As we were walking down the hallway, we ran into Wilder and we all just stood there for 10 minutes or so, talking about this and that (mostly flying, I'm sure). As we're walking away, my California friend asked, "Who in the world was that?" 

"Oh, just the Lieutenant Governor," I said.

Rest in peace, Guvnuh. The cosmos, and the state of Tennessee, won't be the same without you.