on a farm and grew seventeen varieties of bamboo.
His name was William Henneuse and he was born in
Bonny Doon, and lived most of his life on Sims Road,
on a farm that he moved to in 1926. When I met him he
was 68 and I was 19. Bill was a friend to me and I to him,
until he died, fifteen years later. I lived on his farm
with him and some other people, mostly hippies.
He charged $30.00 a month rent, to help pay
his property tax and insurance.
We lived in an old falling-down
farmhouse with the plaster coming off
the walls, and a leaky roof. The water was
heated by pipes traveling through the back
of the woodstove. Bill had goats and
ducks, and always grew corn and pumpkins,
and giant olallieberries. All day long, he
would walk around and tend to things
on the farm, with a pair of clippers
that he carried in his back pocket to trim
back berry bushes. He had varieties of
fruit that I had never heard of, old
fashioned kinds. He always saved back
some of the corn to shuck for seed.
He had abundance and he shared it.
Bill had three grown sons, and his wife Hattie
lived on the property next door. He would
come in at lunch time and set a pot of water
to boil, then go down and pick some fresh
ears of corn. Bill taught me to love corn raw.
I watched him hoe out weeds in the dusty soil he watered
with "a lick and a promise", the pale silks turning brown
as the ears fattened. He usually kept a dog around the
place for company, and also to keep racoons out of the
chicken house, and "Buster" would get the extra corn fritters.
Bill was an incredible friend. He was both true to himself
and very loving. While he never talked too
personally or directly about feelings, he had a way of
letting you know that he got a lot of the nuances of an
interaction, wasn't missing a beat of the emotional
tenor, by slipping in a comment that spoke to the heart of a
matter. I received tutoring from him about how to care for
goats, how to prune an orchard, how to plant and tend corn,
and how to fix my motorcycle. He expressed tending
as easily and generously as he breathed and lived farm
life, but he was never sentimental. He believed in the
farmer's way of killing critters, and that barn cats had to fend for
themselves. But he had a way of doing business where he always
gave something extra, uncalled for, but appreciated;
a bunch of ears of corn, or some variety of plant you hadn't heard of that
made you feel you were really being looked after. People came
from all over to buy bamboo from him, and he'd go out into the
field with his special hoe and dig up bamboo for them. He had a
"forest" of black bamboo that filtered the light in the afternoon
wind like shimmering water.
