Remember Bill Edwards?

- Jen Tota McGivney

IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK, you can find a grave on Davidson College’s grounds. Campus maps don’t reveal its location, but here’s a tip: Go to Hobart Park, a quiet enclave tucked into trees near the stadium. Look across from the stone replace and near the picnic tables. You may have to hunt a bit under trees and clear away leaves, but you’ll find it: the tombstone of William Davidson Edwards.

It’s a lovely spot for an afternoon of rest, but an unlikely choice for an eternity of it. Then again, everything about Bill Edwards was unexpected. Davidson College Bulletin, the alumni magazine, reveals Bill’s story, update by update, in the class notes. He was a Davidson grad, class of 1953. He became a real estate investor, married a Playboy bunny, sailed the world, and died under mysterious circumstances in China. Something about the drug trade.

Adding to the mystery is this: Bill Edwards isn’t buried here. Bill Edwards isn’t even dead.

Bill Edwards, after all, never lived.

You can blame Mike Myers for this. Mike was a ’53 alum (a real one) with a literary bent. At Davidson, Mike was an English major, the editor of three publications, and a member of the literary society. After graduation, he offered to collect classmates’ updates for the Bulletin. They failed to impress Mike, however. Another marriage. Another promotion. Another baby. Typical. Uninspired. Boring. So in October 1963, Mike snuck in an update about a classmate who never existed.

“Remember Bill Edwards?” Mike wrote in that fall’s Bulletin. “He writes he’s still a bachelor, has just put his savings into a ‘valueless chunk of land near the Metuchen, N. J. airport with no roads within three miles.’ No reason; he’s just always wanted to own some land and this area was ‘so noisy it was cheap.’”