Bill was gifted with a tremendous sense of humor which inspired him to co-create the tongue-in-cheek anti-growth organization called the Florida League Against Progress, better known as, FLAP. Their motto? “Leaving Florida? Take a friend.”

Each year throughout the 80s and 90s, before “Florida Man” became famous, FLAP put out its notorious “Florida Calamity Calendar” which featured editorial cartoons poking fun at Florida’s environment and “culture.” Plus, each date sported a ripped-from-the-headlines weird Florida news item to demonstrate what a truly calamitous state we live in (and that maybe you shouldn’t move here after all).

Riding in a car Bill was driving always turned into a hair-raising adventure once you left the cityscape. He would get terrifyingly distracted by a Swallow-tailed Kite, a stand of ty-ty, wet prairies, dry prairies, cypress domes, sink holes, estuaries– even the bugs that struck his windshield. Bill was also a great lover of snakes, and was genius at finding and charming them.

His late wife Joan and he would throw lavish and memorable twelve-course dinner parties (typically accompanied by twelve cases of wine) for their huge circle of friends at the intimate hideaway home they shared in Winter Park. Following the third dessert, it wasn’t unusual for Bill to sit at the piano and play the best boogie woogie, honky tonk, and swing music this side of Jelly Roll Morton– he had worked his way through college in the 40s and 50s playing for juke joints and dives all over the Northeast.

We’re heartbroken by the news, but so heart happy to have known him. So long, Bill… ”

It was just this past May when i ran into Bill and, his wife, Eloise, at Beefy King in Orlando. He was so gracious to be our speaker in July at our Marion County Museum of History and Archaeology in Ocala. Below is the artwork I did for that event of Bill and a handful of his many, many accomplishments.