Remarkable People I have Known: The Bucolic One

I didn't know what to make of him when we were first introduced.  He was tall, with shoulder length brown hair and a bushy beard and wearing a rather snug looking crimson velvet waistcoat.  We often saw each other in church and soon became friendly.  He invited me to live in his tiny house near the church as a roommate. 

It was a tiny cottage with two rooms, heated by a wood stove and set back on a long sprawling front yard.  We slept in the same room, on floor mattresses.  I had never been at close quarters with someone like him.  The year was 1976.  I was twenty and he was twenty-eight. 

At first sight he suggested a hillbilly or a mountain man.  He was from California where he had earned a bachelor of arts degree, in what I can't remember.  He had a taste for bluegrass music and free-lanced fixing foreign cars for a living.  Often strewing the front yard would be found a Volvo, a Porsche and a Mercedes-Benz, all in various states of repair.

He had a talent for finding the interesting, the exquisite, the odd and the beautiful, in people as well as objects.  He brought home some of the most wonderful examples of hand blown glass I had ever seen.  There was always an interesting stream of visitors coming through the house.  He was an accomplished cook using natural ingredients and a selection of spices and sauces I often found dizzying.  He also had a wild and earthy wit.  He told me of the single African American he saw at a party one night in California, happily smoking a joint while sprawled on the couch.  "And who would you be?"  he asked him.  The African-American gave him a huge wide and beautiful smile as he replied, "I's....The Tokin' Niggah!"

Another anecdote was of a rather despised university professor he had studied under.  Bates was his name, or, "Master Bates."

One night we had an earthquake.  It was small but we felt the house shake and heard a loud and roaring noise rather like a semi-trailer truck going by.  It was past one-thirty in the morning and we had been hanging out in the kitchen chatting about things.  I was impressed by his absolute nonchalance about the tremor.  He had lived many years in California where tremors like this happened often and were generally not much noticed.

What I particularly valued about living with him, despite the lack of privacy, was how relaxed he was and his way of helping others feel at ease.  Anyone who walked in through his door was made welcome and treated with honour and friendship.

The church community in the neighbourhood thought otherwise.  They saw him as dirty, unkempt and rebellious.  The church had once been a thriving and loving charismatic fellowship but was rapidly mutating into the Church of the Straight and Narrow.  The
Bucolic One would not submit to their authority, you see.  They saw me as booty to be rescued from him.

I lived with him for only one month.  A room opened up in the boys' communal house associated with the Church of the straight and Narrow.  I reluctantly accepted their invitation.  It was of course a mistake but I knew I was vulnerable and that my options would always be limited.