A smallish, sprightly man darts through parkedcars at the Aquatic & Fitness Center.
Students may recognize him as "Bill, that guy who writes tickets."
Bill Kelley is a 61-year-old man who may look his age, but he certainly doesn't act it.
When he walks he bounces. When he speaks to you, you're his dearest friend. And Kelley's story goes a great deal beyond the tale of a traffic officer.
Kelley took his first job at the University 14 years ago. As a lifelong Charlottesville resident and someone who seems to thrive on social interaction, his ties with the University and its people run deep.
Kelley's been making friends here far longer than he's been writing tickets.
He is part of a family legacy at the University. His father and grandfather both worked at the University Hospital, and his mother was a University seamstress.
Aside from that, Kelley himself has been schmoozing with a not-so-shabby crowd at the University for most of his 61 years.
"I used to play tennis here," Kelley said. "A doctor at the University gave me my first tennis racket. He was the head of cardiology -- my mom worked for him. So I became buddies with all these people, like the Dean of the Med school, the Dean of the Law school, playing tennis."
Kelley did not, however, just face off against local big-shots.
"Arthur Ashe was a good friend of mine," Kelley added off-handedly. "He used to come to my house when he was a teenager."
Kelley spent 50 years of his life playing tennis here, and the decline of the sport's popularity is one of the changes he's seen in his long, intimate relationship with the people of the University.
"Charlottesville used to be a tennis mecca," Kelley reminisced. "It sort of died out, and it never got really big again the way it was in the 50s and 60s."
But the waning of tennis mania was trivial compared to the historically tremendous events that Kelley witnessed: The integration of women and the integration of minorities into the University.
And yet, Kelley does not seem pressed to make any self-important political comments. In his youthful, lighthearted tone, he just reports what he saw.
"I lived on the corner of Rugby and Preston, and I was used to seeing guys in blazers and khakis," he said. "I think the guys liked [the change], because they could get dates now."
Over his 14 years of employment with the University, Kelley has accumulated a long string of jobs.
Although his official title is meter auditor, he also is a ticket booth attendant, a traffic control officer, a special events assistant and an occasional staff member with the University Police Department.
Piles of jobs mean that Kelley is always on the run.
"Bill comes in here, and we'll talk about sports a lot," Poolside Café employee Stephanie Christmas said. But, she added, snapping her fingers for effect, "He's always like, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go."
Kelley loves that rushing feeling.
"I'm like an octopus; I like to be busy," Kelley said. "I'm a workaholic and a people person."
His people skills hardly are a disadvantage when he's in traffic-control mode.
"I've met so many people writing parking tickets," Kelley said. "At first they fuss at me, but then we get to be good friends."
In another era of his long stint with the University, Kelley was the drummer in a Charlottesville-based band called the Tommy Miller Quartet. The group would play all over Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. "It was the unofficial University band," Kelley said.
If there's any doubt, Kelley carries with him a pamphlet from 1976, a Charlottesville publication entitled "This Week Magazine," which boasts Tommy Miller's four men on its cover. The pamphlet is yellowed, with its corners bent and its pages mildly creased, but its overall condition will suffice to stifle anyone who challenges Kelley on the band question.
Beaming with adolescent joy at the turn of every page, Kelley recalled the time in 1975 when the Tommy Miller Quartet was invited to play at the National Governor's Convention in Williamsburg. Someone else showed up as well. It was Elizabeth Taylor.
"When [Taylor] was married to John Warner, she used to come down and sing with us," Kelley said.
During this time, Kelley lived on Route 29 South in an apartment above a nightclub called Brenwana. Not only did his band play there, but Kelley also acted as a sort of manager -- a manager who cooked, hosted, waited tables, washed dishes and, of course, played music.
"I used to play six or seven nights a week, and I can't stand music anymore," Kelley said with a smile. "People go to night clubs -- I can't stand it!" And Kelley's energy leads one to think he really would go out and dance all night -- if only he weren't so sick of that noise.
For some time afterward, Kelley worked in private security for television entrepreneur John Kluge. Kluge, one of the wealthiest people in the world and said to be worth $11 billion, employed Kelley at his 250-room mansion near Charlottesville.
Kelley seems to have a knack for crossing paths with the rich and famous.
"I met Sissy Spacek over at the University hospital," Kelley recalled, his face revealing no particular delight about yet another brush with a celebrity. "I also met John Grisham. He donates a lot of money to the University. But I don't pay any attention to these people."
He laughed in his easy way, as he said, "I could be here a week and tell you all the people I know."
Though he feigned indifference, Kelley's smiling face couldn't help giving away a hint of satisfaction.
Kelley has spent his life immersed in Charlottesville and immersed in the University. Hardly a wonder, with all his experiences, he never has had the urge to leave.
"This is my hometown, and most people don't like their hometown," Kelley said. "But I love it. I've had a good life. I've really enjoyed life."
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