Bill Orleans

When first permitted to run for council, or from council, as it may be, Orleans’ biography was published in the October 20, 2011 issue of the News Review. It’s archived, and can be read, new and improved at billorleans.com. It is a recitation of a few stories relevant to the construct of his character. He often has thought that many will have read the first clause of the first sentence, agreed with it and read no further. When he returned to Greenbelt in 2004, it was not to win friends and influence council, it was from necessity. Life’s potential was lost to him in NYC, where he had lived for 35 years, and indeed, his life, itself, was in question. Unemployable for more than a year, ethically, morally and financially in debt, drinking heavily, he returned to live, what he had reason to believe would be a short span of time, in his late mother’s GHI home in the dead of night, and, not unpacking his car, drank himself to sleep. The next day he was informed by doctors that he could not live unless he stopped drinking. Hoping to resolve as much of his collective debts as would be possible, he was persuaded, drove back to Greenbelt and the next day fulfilled every good boy’s obligation, got a library card and a change of registration form. That first week back, or the next, he went to his first Greenbelt City Council meeting. A Queen and her Consort, no less pompous and basely political than their big city counterparts, or than the Senator Snorts of Congress and no one was there to watch them cavort. Thus began Bill’s last act, monitoring Greenbelt Council, and done mostly alone and made all the more difficult because he was engaging in this while sober.