Hello friends of Bill,
This site was originally the idea of Michael Grossman, a longtime friend and colleague of Bill’s, who suggested that Bill’s wide circle of friends might want a place to reflect on his life. Josh and I put it together, with the advice of Paul Donald and Jessie Scanlon, in the hopes of providing that. No one should feel obligated to write, of course; there is no agenda here besides celebrating Bill, and no real rules except those of general decency. Bill was a lover of spirited conversation and a master of wit, no doubt both will be found among his friends here.
It’s certainly impossible to capture the full measure of Bill’s qualities in a few lines. But hopefully what will emerge here in stories and recollections will reflect what I’ve seen around San Francisco this week: the indelible mark he left on just about anyone who entered his orbit.
I plan to write more later, but for now — and apropos of nothing, as Bill would say…I must have exchanged hundreds, perhaps thousands, of text messages and emails with him over the years. Yet I have no doubt that if you showed me any one of them, without his name attached, I would know instantly that he was the author. Each communication from Bill was carefully crafted in his warm and inscrutable style, drenched in the obscure, the self-deprecating, the hilarious, and the absurd. He had those particular, almost anachronistic phrases — “Yr pal, B,” or “Thoughts, with or without musical accompaniment, welcome,” or “Coordinating details to follow from a secure voice connection” — that marked the prose as his own.
The last text I got from him, on the Saturday night before the marathon, was no exception:
From: Goggins 9:38 pm 7/30/06
26 & change, brought to you by R. Chandler’s Sport Beans. “A
little trouble is my business.” Just me and my carbo loaded
feedbag. Come 5:35 a.m. I won’t just be running @ the mouth.
-Evan