ATLANTA — Though Bill McCloskey officially worked at Manuel’s Tavern for 48 years, owner Brian Maloof says it was actually longer than that.
McCloskey, a fixture at the neighborhood bar, died Sunday. He was 74 years old.
McCloskey started working at Manuel’s in 1972, but unofficially, he had worked there for some time before that. Maloof said McCloskey had been working at the Mead paper company down the road from Manuel’s when he came to the tavern for a beer or two and was asked to help a little.
“That little help quickly turned into the start of Bill’s 48-year work/love affair with Manuel’s,” Maloof wrote on a Facebook post in April when McCloskey officially retired.
Just a few months after his retirement, Maloof took to Facebook again, this time to share the news of his passing.
“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I inform all of you that Bill McCloskey passed away peacefully at home sometime last night or early this morning,” Maloof said on Sunday.
He said he and Bill spoke several times a day and it usually started very early in the morning and that when he didn’t answer the phone over the weekend, he drove to his home and found him on his sofa in “peaceful and everlasting rest.”
Manuel’s Tavern, known for being a political bar of sorts, McCloksey was there for many organized events. He served President Barack Obama when he visited, had multiple interactions with President Jimmy Carter, Gov. Zell Miller, Gov. Roy Barnes and many others.
About a year and a half ago, Maloof learned that McCloskey was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He also had chronic respiratory trouble over the years.
“Bill has been really sick and I have had a front-row seat to all of it,” Maloof said. ”It has been my pleasure and blessing to have helped him these last few years.”
His illness didn’t get in the way of the joy he brought others.
“With grace, humor, and humility Bill accepted his declining health and did everything he could to prevent it from consuming his joy,” Maloof said.
He said that McCloksey never complained about his health or his circumstances.
“He told me he had to stop going to the VA (Medical Center) because he could see all the soldiers that he felt needed medical care service more than him. He did not want to bother anyone so he never asked for help instead he gave more of himself.”
Maloof said he was always giving and the more he did, the better he felt.
“And he did this this to the very end.”
No funeral arrangements have been announced yet, but Manuel’s Tavern hopes to have a memorial and remembrance at a later date.
