Wednesday, February 9, 2022
My friend Bill Spicer was a brave and decent man. He was one of the smartest people I have ever met. He was at once all of these things;
brilliant, engaging, thoughtful, stubborn, and quirky.
He had a great appreciation for his family, for life, for the folly of people, for a good intellectual discussion, and an ice cold beer. He enjoyed touring all the popular and not so popular museums in the Metro DC area. He would tell you about the state of West Virginia, and little known nuggets about Kentucky. He read The New Yorker Magazine from cover to cover. He always debated entering their weekly comic competition where YOU send in the line for the blank comic (though he never did).
He also greatly enjoyed the NY Times crossword puzzle. If you ever visited him, he would start the crossword puzzle during his morning coffee and through breakfast. His goal was to have the puzzle completed by the time he got off the train stop to go to work.
He loved history podcasts, and college football (the unfairness of the SEC being given multiple chances to get a team in the playoff system drove him near madness). He consistently followed anything having to do with WVU sports. He enjoyed hot and spicy foods, sloppy sandwiches, and X-tra large Skyline Chili 4 ways. He once told me his favorite hot sauce was one called, "liquid stupid".
Always mindful of his health, he was an accomplished trail bike rider, who also enjoyed evening speed walks with Suzanne, kayaking and golf. He was very adept at throwing a frisbee. He could throw a frisbee in a straight arc to a person 40 yards away, and get it within one foot of where they stood.
Bill could cook very well. His meals could (not that they always did) rival those of a professionally trained chef. He swore by the book The Joy of Cooking. When Bill would ask what time you wanted to eat dinner, it was best to say 7:00pm if you wanted to eat by 8:30pm. Everyone around him knew this was how it was when he cooked.
He also understood that food connects us to each other. He cooked and sampled, and made a mess, while chatting his way through the meal preparation. One of his great traditions was making butterhorns (like his dad before him) each Christmas. He would serve them and then tell you for 15 minutes how he didn't get them as quite as good as his dad's!
He had friends all over the place. He might tell you about his friend who raised sheep in the mountains of West Virginia. Or the neighbor up the street who worked at the State Department. He might also talk about the 5 women in his neighborhood that had an exercise class right there in the street, and how he couldn't keep up with them! He would talk for hours about Logan and Michael, or taking walks with Suzanne. He would fill you in on his nieces, his in-laws, his mom, his brothers and Suzanne. He complained about the cats while nuzzling and petting them up on his lap. He loved eclectic music, and thought of singer songwriters Peter Mulvey and Amy Correra as American poets.
Bill Spicer had a West Virginia dialect that was a cover for an incredibly gifted intellect. He was sharp, funny, witty, compassionate, thoughtful, and yes… A bit disorganized. He had a great gift of being able to quickly think on his feet. This is what made him so formidable in the courtroom. He could immediately process what was going on, and respond very quickly to the situation. He would tell stories of interesting legal cases, and the solid people he tried them with. He would shake his head when he reflected on his clients. He believed that public defenders were a special breed, committed to fighting uphill battles all the time.
Bill was also very quirky and impetuous. In 2020 our daughter trained in Baltimore, MD. Bill and Suzanne were gracious enough to order a bed and hold it, until I could drive from N KY to Arlington, VA in order to pick it up. Bill then helped me deliver it. We get inside the apartment and part of the interior entrance is exposed brick. Bill says, "Wow, it's like having your own stage here at a comedy club!"
Bill helps me get the bed upstairs, then disappears as my daughter and I work to set it up. Bill takes this video...because he is Bill and he can't pass it up!
(I hope the video loaded!!!)
(my other daughter added the soundtrack later)...
He had an exceptionally quick wit. If he were on the phone and someone would ask how he spelled his last name, he would simply say, "SPICER....S as in sea, P as in pterodactyl, I as in eyeball C as in czar, E as in ewe, R as in are! SPICER, did you get that?"
He was a talker, and a storyteller. Many times HE would be the butt of his own jokes. He loved to tell you about goofy situations he would get into.
Here's one...
Bill graciously took his mother to Italy to see the sights. In preparation for this trip he enrolled in a "how to speak Italian class". He went to classes for weeks, trying to learn any Italian he could, because he wanted to be able to connect with local Italians.
After a day of touring, he and his mom eat dinner, and he gets her settled in to their room. He decides to go down the street to a local trattoria and see if there was any chance he can catch a game from the NCAA March madness tournament. While there, he talks to an Italian guy for over 3 hours. After finishing his beer he decides to walk back to the hotel, and he later said, "It was odd because the guy decided to come with me." About 30 yards outside the hotel, his newfound friend turns and mugs Bill! Bill got so angry he fought back, overpowered the assailant, and then had to stop himself from beating the guy up. The guy screamed and ran off.
Bill would tell that story and then say with a straight face, "I'm not sure they'll ever let me back into Italy again, because I'm the guy who mugged my mugger, denying that guy of his right to make a living!"
Let's just say he got to know the locals. That story was pure Bill.
I will miss his friendship greatly. I will miss his mirth. I will also miss his perspective, because Bill had a way of thinking about things I had never considered regarding a topic. He expressed those thoughts eloquently, and at times could be stubborn to a fault. But that was Bill. He was true, he was genuine and he was one of the finest people we will ever call a friend. Lexington, Kentucky is a sadder place today because of our collective loss.
Mike and Jeanne James
Kansas City, MO
