The stories, the one-liners, and the guy who could make a whole room laugh.
Bill had a beautiful soul, a quick wit, and a way of finding the joke even when life gave him every reason not to.
On February 5, 1959, at Marin General Hospital in San Rafael, California, William (Bill) Allen Dooley was born to Edith Idolia Hanly and William Luther Dooley. The baby of the family, he looked up to his older brother David William Dooley and Denise Ann Conrado, and eventually became the not-so-baby when his younger brother from another mother, Tom Nelson Dooley, was born.
As a young boy with endless energy, he was constantly getting into mischievous adventures and always on the move. The natural world was his playground, and Bill was constantly playing. From sunrise to sundown, Bill was hiking, biking, frisbeeing, disc golfing, spelunking, bouldering, climbing, jumping, swimming, and adventuring. Growing up in Napa and Sonoma counties, there was no end to his discoveries in the natural world, which shaped much of his world view and outlook for our human existence. A deep, irreverent respect for Mother Nature and Her gifts — he took seriously the preservation of the Earth while discovering its mysteries. The campsite golden rule was ingrained into him: no matter where you go, leave it better than you found it. That included our fellow humans.
Bill was a unique and special soul, and he easily found the endless gifts bred from Humor. He discovered that laughing was the antidote to almost anything. It could bring a wallflower out of their shell, help groups of people connect, offer solace in tragedies, and, most of all, remind everyone not to take life so seriously.
He could befriend anything and anyone. Babies adored him, strangers were always delighted (and sometimes shocked) by him, he extended invitations to strangers to join him on his adventures, and animals of any size or shape would gravitate towards him. The birds, the butterflies, even the flies — he would engage with everyone and everything with the same respect for life.
Bill was a curator for connection.
He could catch you off guard with one sentence, make you laugh until you cried, and somehow make even the hardest days feel a little lighter.
Bill was the kind of person who made people feel welcome, seen, and usually a little more entertained than they expected. He loved his family and friends deeply and never missed an opportunity to land a perfectly timed joke.
Even through years of cancer treatment, hospital stays, and every version of “new hardware” life threw at him, Bill held onto his humor. He called it another adventure, found the absurdity when things got hard, and kept the people around him laughing when they needed it most.
His depth was of the ocean — an intuitive soul, deeply spiritual. What he lacked in “formal” education he made up for in his mastery of the Human Experience.
“I did not know who I was growing up, so I spent my whole life becoming who I am today.”Bill, about ten days before he passed
Survived by his life partner, Catherine Irene Noceti; his daughter, Sierra Rose Noceti Dooley; his sister, Denise Ann Conrado; and his half-brother, Tom Nelson Dooley, along with many beautiful nieces, great-nieces, nephews, and cousins.