James Blakeman Spamer – 50th Reunion Essay

James Blakeman Spamer

Date of Death: 4-Jul-2000

College: Davenport

From Google Books: James Blakeman Spamer, The Kenning and the Kend Heiti: A Contrastive Study of Periphrasis in 2 Germanic Poetic Traditions, 1977.”

From Brown University (via Nick Bellotto): He began his career in academia as an associate professor of English at UC Davis from 1977 to 1982, but in 1983 he received his doctor of jurisprudence degree from Texas Technical University, where he was an editor of the Law Review and a member of Phi Delta Phi. After practicing corporate law in Houston for two years, he was a staff attorney at the Court of Appeals, Fifth District of Texas. Phi Beta Kappa. He is survived by two sisters and a brother.

From Nick Bellotto: Jim and I were lucky enough to have single rooms on the top floor of Davenport College our junior and senior years. We spent many evenings together that usually stretched into the early morning hours eating pizza, matching wits, and discussing everything one discussed at Yale in the sixties. Jim was a true scholar, Phi Beta Kappa, and an avid moviegoer.

Jim was from Stratford, Connecticut, where I met his family during an occasional visit to his home. During one of these visits I remember a game of chess with Jim. It was memorable because it was the longest and most exciting game I ever played. We started in the morning and didn’t finish until the late afternoon. Inevitable checkmate kept shifting between the two of us, and each time we managed to squirm out of it and turn the tables. This went on for hours, and I don’t remember who finally won. But I will never forget that game.

I saw Jim after Yale when we both still lived in Connecticut in the early 1970s. Jim was a conscientious objector and served two years as an orderly in a hospital near Hartford. I didn’t see him after he joined the faculty at UC Davis. He left his position there, got a law degree, and practiced in Dallas. He was married and divorced and had no children.

Wish I could match wits with him again.