William John CADOGAN Jr.

I am very sorry to hear of Bill's passing. He was a warm hearted critic and an entertaining addition to our writers workshop.

Bill was a sweet, funny, intelligent, warm hearted rascal of a man. Over the years Bill took several of my Writing Workshops at Collected Works Bookstore, and like many of my former workshoppers, he became a friend. He'd shuffle into our workshop, cheerful, grumpy and pensive then settle into his chair with his wad of manuscript pages. Bill had a writer's burning passion, and always offered very insightful, helpful comments about other people's works in progress. In 2014 we published a book I edited called Strangers In a Small Room: An Anthology of Untold Stories. We included one of Bill's stories, Staying Alive in Eighty-Five. Bill's piece is a memoir about his wild and woolly experiences travelling and working. Here is the opening sentence: It usually takes dynamite to get me out of a warm bed, especially on a Thursday afternoon in March, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle...
When we were getting the stories ready for press, I got a short cryptic email from Bill: Sorry for the delay. I am hilariously incompetent on the computer and this is aggravated by my paranoia - I take every mis-step, blackhole, endless search and crash very personally.
In one of our workshops Bill submitted a long multi-layered, rollicking excerpt from a charming, irreverent novel in progress called A Crack In the Head: Aphasia, biphasia, diphasia, who the hell knows? All he knew was that he was in the Rehab Centre in Edmonton with a serious crack in the head, suffered while working on an oil rig. He could hear, read and understand but he couldn't speak. Bummer. Admonchuk in winter was a whole lot of an acquired taste but this... this pill-taking, this paperwork, this constant flutter of doctors, nurses and orderlies. He couldn't even yell at them; after all, they were useful, courteous to a fault and doing a lot more with their lives than he was. He thought of that old Ian Tyson song about a cowboy in a blizzard: What am I doin' here, Lord. What am I doin' here? Looking' at the south end of northbound cattle. What am I doin' here?"

I am so sorry to here passing of my friend Bill Cadogan. He was always very kind to me. He was smart and very humorous and I for many years would give him lifts home late night after he would help me with my tennis at the OAC. I will miss him deeply and my codolensces to his family.

We enjoyed our time with Bill at the Ottawa Athletic Club. He always called me "2624" which was my membership number. Linda and I appreciated Bill's sense of humour and his kind ways. He would ask us how our son was doing.
We miss him.
Paddy and Linda Stewart