Mondays with Mike: Farewell to a friend, neighbor, and overall mensch

This past Saturday Beth and I took the Amtrak to Champaign, Illinois to attend a memorial service for our very dear friend, Jim Spencer. Jim came from a big family, all of whom are well known around Champaign-Urbana—Beth and I have always joked that if you live in Champaign-Urbana, you’re either a Spencer, related to one, or know one. Plus, though “pillar of the community” is kind of a shopworn phrase, Jim truly was.

Judy Ciambotti and Jim Spencer. Taken at their daughter Sunny’s wedding.

And indeed, a throng of people turned out at the Virginia Theatre, one of those classic, downtown palaces that opened in 1921 and eventually deteriorated until 2000 when the Champaign Park District bought it. Today it dazzles like the day it opened—thanks in large part to the work of Jim Spencer. Jim was the head of the Champaign Park District department that oversaw facilities and maintenance. He led the years-long restoration of the Virginia, which is now thriving with local and touring acts, and is the home of the Ebertfest annual film festival (originally called “Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival.”) The Virginia was his crowning achievement, and a lasting legacy.

That’s a statue of Roger Ebert just outside the Virginia Theatre.

As such, the Virginia was exactly right for the occasion.

It was, like these things are, bittersweet. On one hand, we got to see Jim’s wife Judy, their children, the veritable Champaign-Urbana Spencer nation. It was great to be with them all, but the reason we were together hung in the air.

Members of the family got the service rolling. Jim and Judy’s daughter Gia Ciambotti sang (an it was not your typical, say, hymn—Gia is a professional backup singer and has toured with the likes of Bruce Springsteen; she included a song she’d written).

At one point, members of the audience were asked whether they wanted to tell their own stories. I wanted to say something. I’m usually not at a loss for words, as readers know. I don’t much like public speaking, though—I get a little white knuckled. And, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. Jim and Judy were long-time neighbors and friends, back in the days when Beth and Gus and I lived in our vintage house on tree-lined California Street in Urbana. And the truth was, as I sat there, I didn’t know how to do him justice.

And so what I did instead was think about those years on California. How, after a mutual friend introduced us to those cool people across the street, we’d wander over to sit on their wraparound front porch, or for dinner, or for no reason. We always rolled Gus to the Fourth of July Parade route, and then afterward gather at Jim and Judy’s, with their vast family, kids, friends of kids, and talk about how freakin’ hot it is in Champaign every Fourth of July.

We always felt welcome and enjoyed Jim and Judy’s little backyard nation, but we did, jealously, sometimes want them for ourselves. On those infrequent happenings, the four of us would talk about everything, especially music, politics, and baseball. And they’d regale us with stories of how they met when they both lived in San Francisco in the Janis Joplin days (Judy knew Joplin!), and the bands they’d played in back in the day Jim played bass and Judy was up front singing.

But those opportunities were rare. Even those times that we thought it’d be just the four of us, we’d find someone new at the Jim and Judy house. It became kind of a running joke between us all. It might be one of their kids visiting, or a boomerang kid needing a little shelter from some tough times. Or a friend of one of their kids who needed a place to stay for awhile. Or someone going back to school. Or an adult grandchild finding his way who just needed a base of operations for awhile.

We met a lot of people visiting with Jim and Judy.

And you know, we saw every single one of them last Saturday. The only one missing was Jim.