BRATTLEBORO — I'm lighting a candle this morning for Bill Oates, my old friend.
We are living through a sad and sorry time in our nation's history - especially in regard to how we handle death in our communities.
By the time this pandemic ends, we'll have officially lost at least a million of us to Covid. We probably have already.
In the first months of the disease, folks had to say goodbye to their loved ones by cell phone, or from the other side of a window, guarded and sealed. Hundreds of thousands of people passed away without the ceremonies that families and friends would have given them. Many of them had only an exhausted front-line worker in full hazmat gear at their side to help them pass over. Funeral gatherings were diminished, postponed, or simply skipped.
Vaccinations and masks have helped in this regard, making the passage more humane. But for the most part, people still go away too quietly.
Bill Oates was one of them. He died last week in long-term-care confinement, where his old friends couldn't visit to say goodbye.
When I think of all Bill did for our town and state, I wish for a big party, with the best food and drink, in his honor - how he would have wanted it.
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Bill was a Yale scholar with a fine intellect and an ear for foreign language, but he wore that humbly and left the academic life behind.
I met him when he arrived with a splash in Brattleboro in the 1970s. He was a hip capitalist, whatever that means!
For those of us on “back to the land” farms, Bill was our ticket to how we could stay and redefine why we were in Vermont. I may have my history wrong - his family can go ahead and correct me - but he and a partner founded our first health food store, the Good Life.
He provided jobs to four of us from Packer Corners. We bagged bulk foods; we served customers; we sliced the unbelievable varieties of cheese that arrived in huge wheels from Europe through the open garage door where Yalla is today.
I drove Bill's Good Life van to Boston to pick up whole grains at Erewhon, Columbo yogurt, and Chinese wholesale bean curd, as it was called then. There was as yet no tofu in southern Vermont!
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Other important foundations came from Bill's hard work; he may not have done them all, but he was associated: the Common Ground restaurant, the beginnings of the New England natural food distribution network, the food co-op, the health center, the farmers' market, and a business that supported folks who wanted to come here and own an inn or a B&B.
To all these ventures Bill contributed style, compassion, a demand for quality, and a reality check that kept the dreams on track.
Without Bill's being there at the beginning, the history of Vermont farm-to-table, the natural foods movement, and the focus on local artisan good food and drink would have turned out different or have been delayed. There might not be a gorgeous Whetstone Station brew pub/restaurant greeting visitors here as they step off the train.
Bill gave back to the town that welcomed him. He provided good work to many. He supported local political initiatives and served as an effective board member of the Morningside Shelter. He was a skilled and proud vegetable gardener and a generous host of dinner parties with his wife, Heide Bredfeldt. You wanted to be invited to those.
In his life and living, Bill never called attention to himself. His body failed him much sooner than his mind and spirit.
He died quietly. I'm sure he would tell us not to call special attention to his passing, when so many others have departed with more suffering, and without the proper ceremony, during these difficult times.
But I just wanted you all to know.