I wish I had had some way to say goodbye to him, somehow.  A wonderful man, always full of the epitome of 'joie de vivre'.  He and my mom also got along famously, she having been in her youth a dancer in New York with Hanya Holms.  I remember driving back from something in Berkeley with both William and my mom in the car (could it have been the Martha Graham show at whose end she walked onstage and my mother lost it completely, collapsing in uncontrollable sobs?).  The two of them were like some well rehearsed, well versed comedy extempore team extraordinaire.  We were in stitches the whole way.  I've been long away from SF, but William not being there anymore leaves not a gap but a gaping hole.  The man was everywhere, and part it seemed of everything.  He will most definitely be missed; the constant chance of running into him at who knew where is no more.  That's hard to conceive, harder to take.  There was ever really only one William Smith.  I think it is safe to say we shall never see his like again.  What a wonderful person, what a wonderful fulfilling life he had.  Farewell.

William was an eccentric,  kind and gentle man. I knew him for probably 45 years and never heard him speak harshly or cynically to (or about) anyone. His love for the arts was prodigious. How many people could say they've seen the entire canon of William Shakespeare performed live? Or that they attended a performance of Wagner's The Ring Cycle immediately after being released from an ER where the surgeon set their broken wrist? 

Someone should make a movie about William and his lifetime passion for the arts. He was one of a kind.

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William Lonon Smith

4 novembre 1947 – 23 septembre 2023

San Francisco Columbarium & Funeral Home

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William Lonon Smith

4 novembre 1947 – 23 septembre 2023

San Francisco Columbarium & Funeral Home

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