My friend Ron and I went to Aldi's a few years ago when a distinguished-looking man came down the aisle with us. Ron was looking at items on one side of the aisle and I was looking at items on the other side of the aisle. Then I heard the man say to Ron, "Would you hand me some of that, Honey?" I thought that was really strange that he would call Ron "Honey" and that Ron wasn't reacting like I would expect. So I looked at what was going on. The man was talking about a jar of honey on the shelf.
My friend Ron and I went to see the Kentucky Headhunters several years ago. Ron figured he could hurt there from his cancer as well as he could hurt anywhere else. His sister had already bought our tickets, her treat, and we really did want to see them. The drummer was probably older than I am, had a long, gray beard that I was later told was sideburns and he was obviously hyper. But, wow, he could play the drums. They let him have 10-15 minutes of nothing but drum playing. He played that entire time without stopping. He didn't play Wipe Out, but he played at Wipe Out speed, then he would slow it down to where we thought he was surely going to stop but then he would drum at hyper speed again. He did that about 10 times. I was exhausted just watching him. Finally Ron turned to me and said in his dry humor, "They're going to have to shoot him to get him to stop." Ron was hurting but he hadn't lost his wit.
A friend who is now deceased had his car broken into one night. The thieves didn't take a whole lot but naturally it's aggravating to lose anything you've paid for yourself. We figure it was young boys. (They didn't want my hand lotion.) What is funny is that I had put baking soda in some little packets like tiny Ziploc bags and some in a really small plastic container and kept them in the bag with the other things they took. We took the cloth tote bag to dances, which included potlucks, and sometimes I would get an upset stomach so I kept the baking soda packets handy just in case. I found myself snickering because I could picture the young men trying to snort the white powder. They most likely thought they had hit the jackpot.
I never held Ron’s past against him because that was not the Ron I knew. The one I knew came to church regularly pushing his invalid wife in a wheelchair and at times had to run out to the truck to get her fresh oxygen. I admired the way he cared for her until her death. Ron always wanted to give his testimony but could never bring himself to do it because of shame, but said I could write it after his death. He gave me no instructions as to what to write, so this is written according to conversations we had.
RON’S TESTIMONY
To start from the beginning, Ron Weisbecker was raised by his grandparents in Woodlawn during his early years. Then he moved in with his mother, her husband and his two sisters in Mt. Vernon. He never knew his biological father. He adored his grandfather and looked just like him, especially when he aged. He loved his grandmother too, but his grandfather was special to him. His grandparents took him to church every Sunday while he lived with them. Everyone called him “Toad” during those years. Ron rode a motorcycle for the first time at age 16. His last ride was at the age of 75.
Ron married at the age of 17 and that marriage produced a child, a girl named Cheri (Sherry) Dawn. The marriage ended after 8 years. When he left his marriage, he joined The Outlaws, a motorcycle gang much like the Hell’s Angels. Ron was one of the charter members of the Chicago branch. He told me that he rode up to their clubhouse in the dead of winter and walked in. He was asked by the gang boss why Ron thought he could be a Bad A _ _ Outlaw. Ron replied that when he drove there, there was nothing but trucks around. He told the gang boss that he rode there on a motorcycle and he didn’t see any other Bad A_ _ motorcycles around. He was told that if he had that much guts to ride there on a bike in the dead of winter, he was in. They didn’t know that was the only transportation he had.
He also rode quite a bit with the Hell’s Angels, even though the two gangs were rivals. He phased out of the gangs when they started using guns. A bullet narrowly missed his head and lodged in the wall next to him. He moved back to Mt. Vernon and eventually to Texas. Living that sinful life as part of the gang was a big part of his past that he hated most. He liked the closeness of the gang and he liked being a tough guy but they lived deep in sin. At the time he thought he was having great fun.
The tough guy swagger came naturally for him. He walked with his chin up and his chest out. When he was in his prime, no one messed with him. He was incredibly strong. He was still strong and muscular when I started dating him at the age of 70. When the cancer started robbing him of his strength and balance, he told me he had traded his swagger for a stagger.
I don’t know the year, but when he came back to Mt. Vernon from the Chicago area he spent a lot of time in bars. At some point he met Mary Neidefer. They hung out in the bars and smoked pot together and later married. He got caught once for possession and spent a couple of nights in jail. He had a great fear of jails after that.
Mary was 10 years older than Ron but that never bothered him until her last few years when she was an invalid. He still loved her though. They were married 40 years. Only 35 of them were good years. Their first five years were sin-filled and rocky. Ron had relationships with several women during the splits and one when he and Mary were still together. One woman that threatened their marriage lived out of town. She was very beautiful. He found her irresistible though he knew she was no good morally. He spent time with her at her place and then went back to Mary. The young lady called him up one day and said that if he would find a place for them to live, she would come to Mt. Vernon. He agreed to but she was killed in a car accident on the way. He said if she hadn’t gotten killed, his life would have turned out altogether different.
Later, even though he and Mary were split up, they decided to go to a bar together. They got drunk, then decided to take off and go to Texas. They piled everything into the car including his disassembled motorcycle and off they went.
Once they got away from the bad influences in this area their marriage strengthened. He found a job welding for Brown & Root in Texas, the best-known welding company. He was very good at welding, one of the best, probably because he had the eye and hand coordination of an artist, as is evidenced in his wood carvings. He had a lot of prestige as a welder as he moved from one job to the next and he made a lot of money. He worked long hours but loved making that money and having that prestige.
During that time he was hooked on pot. He eventually started growing it himself and selling it. He said his life revolved around getting his next hit. He later wished he could get the 20 years back that he spent smoking pot. He said he missed out on so much in those years. He and Mary also did a lot of partying on weekends, ending up in a drunken state.
Then one day while still in Texas he was helping push a broken-down truck uphill and he felt something inside him give. He started having problems after that. The doctor discovered a fistula had formed in his colon. Ron explained that a fistula is like cancer but feeds on itself instead of on other cells. That didn’t make sense to me but that was how he explained it. Regardless, it was eating up his colon so his colon was removed in sections until he begged the doctor to remove all but a short section. At that time he had a colostomy here in Mt. Vernon in 1985. By then he was not able to work and had to go on disability. He lost everything he owned of any value. Before he had the colostomy he had had such a bad infection around his rectum area that a tube was inserted to allow it to drain. He was still working in Texas when he had the rectal infection. During that time he had to wear Depends. He would sometimes spend the night in the bathtub full of water to ease his pain and then go to work the next day. When they did the colostomy, they removed the tube and sewed up his rectum. He wore a bag over a hole in his stomach after that until someone taught him to irrigate his colon. So he spent a couple of hours every morning irrigating what was left of his colon and into his stomach. Then he would put a patch over the hole. He had been through a long, hard battle but he survived it and didn’t let it stop him from doing what he wanted.
When he had the colostomy, he was lying in the hospital bed and a chaplain came in and asked if he could pray for him. Ron told him that would be alright if it would make him feel better. So the chaplain started praying. During that prayer Ron felt like something washed over him and he came to his senses. One could say he saw the light. He gave up his bad habits and started praising Jesus for cleansing him. He was even part of a gospel quartet for a while. It was a rather shocking transformation to those who knew him. God finally had his attention. He did have one bad habit that he battled to the end and it had to do with his mouth. Ron was not perfect by any means but he was made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ. He could not do it on his own. None of us can.
When Ron irrigated every morning, he would spend that time reading his Bible and praying for people. He kept a prayer list. He has read his Bible through more times than anyone I know. With each year that he irrigated, he read the Bible through. And he prayed for the people on the list as it changed.
Ron belonged to the Christian Motorcycle Association for several years. He was riding his motorcycle down Broadway one evening after one of their meetings, which included prayer. He noticed a truck in the center lane with its blinker on but thought nothing of it. Then the truck turned in front of him. He held onto the bike so he would go down with it rather than fly over the handlebars and through the window or into the side of the truck. His knee was fractured into 3 parts and his ankle was also fractured. It took 16 weeks for him to recover from his injuries. The doctors were truly amazed that he wasn’t hurt worse or killed. He was 71 at the time.
Two years later he was with CMA bikers on a road trip and when they got to Edwardsville, there was an odd setup with the way the road ended. Ron had just purchased a new motorcycle the day before. He was enjoying the ride and then that’s the last he remembered until they were loading him in the ambulance. Other bikers said he caught the curb, almost recovered control, then hit it again. He and his motorcycle both went end over end on the concrete highway. Ron’s neck was fractured and so he was airlifted to St. Louis University hospital in St. Louis. He was in ICU 2 days and in a regular room another day and that’s all he could take. He wanted out of there and so they let him go. We went dancing the next Friday night. He did have to wear a neck brace for several months but he was never impaired in any way. That same weekend there were two young men that had been in motorcycle accidents. One was killed and the other lost a leg. Ron was 73 then.
It was when they did a CT scan after the second accident that his cancer was discovered. He chose not to go through chemo, radiation or surgery. He refused tests too. The cancer started in his liver, as far as we know, then went to his pancreas and all across his stomach. When the stomach pain got too great, that was when he had to go on morphine and on hospice. He thought he had a stomach infection and I thought he had ulcers, so when he was told he needed to go on hospice, he was shocked. He told the doctor that it was OK. He would get to meet Jesus. Then he called me and told me he had just been put on hospice. He had been doing fine other than intense stomach aches, so I was stunned.
Ron hoped he would just drop dead right away but it didn’t work out that way. He begged to die as he got worse and worse but he was too tough, which worked against him. His body endured what would have long before killed others. But his battles have all been fought and won. He did not lose his life to cancer. He just changed locations and went to be with Jesus.
Ron is proof that we should never give up on any person who has taken the wrong path in life. Before he died, Ron asked me to write up his testimony because he had always wanted to give it but couldn’t bring himself to endure the guilt and shame and he was afraid people would think less of him. I assured him that people love to forgive and love it when someone turns their life around. They admire and respect the person. He was the Prodigal Son who came home and was joyfully welcomed.
No one can appreciate God’s mercy more than someone who was lost in sin and Ron was counting on his sins having been forgiven. His desire was to meet Jesus, the one who paid the price for Ron’s sins and buried them in His grave. Ron is in his new home now free from his pain and misery. I can picture his guardian angel slumped to the floor and wiping the sweat off his brow.
