When you lose a town fixture--rest in peace Bill Ewing.

See update at the end of the blog post.

Did you know Bill Ewing? Maybe you didn't know him by name. If you're new to town these last two years, you wouldn't really have had the chance because his health began to decline and he wasn't getting around so much.

I liked to call him "Old Bill"--it seemed like a good nickname for a town fixture. Not that long ago, before he got so sick, he used to love to walk around town. You'd have known him for his worn out Boston Red Sox cap, his baggy jeans, and his heavy, persistent walk, a little bent in the knees.

Bill loved the idea of being a crotchety old man, but could never pull it off--you always knew he was teasing or pulling your leg. He loved to laugh, and laughed loudly, and when he'd joke with you, his big smile would open broadly to reveal the gap between his front teeth. Like my dad, he had an eye that could look in another direction. He had a lot of character and was a character.

I'm not sure how long Bill lived in Maynard. I know he wasn't born here. I feel like he told me he came from somewhere closer to Boston. Was it Waltham? But he was here long enough to remember when the downtown was bustling, the Mill was full of Digital employees, and all the surrounding towns claimed Maynard as their hangout place.

I met Bill at the Boston Bean House. My family would go there on a Saturday for breakfast and we'd chat with him from our nearby table. Our daughter was a toddler then, and she used to peek at him from the edge of the opposite side of his table. He loved that. And as she grew, though he could never remember her name, and though he had begun to forget mine, he would talk about how little she used to be when she was peeking at him. But he had nicknames for us. He called me "the Crazy Hat Lady," and my husband "That Quiet Guy Who Never Smiles" (which always made Richard smile.).

Bill loved to tease me about my hats. I didn't mind--I knew he was doing it to be playful. One year at ArtSpace's Open Studios, I invited him to come and see my space. He had never been to the building in it's current use. While he was there, I was able to convince him to take off his old baseball cap and let me snap a picture of him in one of my fedora's. He obliged, and I'm grateful to have the picture to share with all of you.

Bill was probably nearing ninety, and some six-or-so years ago I remember him telling me about going around and helping "the old people" shovel the snow out of their driveways. A couple of years ago, when the Boston Bean House was a little backed up with food orders, Bill walked to the back, grabbed the snow shovel, and went out to the front steps to help clear the snow that kept accumulating. I thought it spoke so much about who he is that I had to grab a picture.

On Valentine's Day, he used to order a dozen long stemmed red roses to be delivered to his favorite businesses in town. I would always see them prominently on display on the refrigerator case at the Bean, with the little card signed the way he signed all his cards, and which confused me the first time I got a card from him, "Love, Bill and Bernie." I learned that Bernie was his wife, and that she had died years before. Still, he couldn't sign his name without including hers.

When his health and memory began failing him, his son Brian made sure he got to the Bean, and it was his son who emailed me today to let me know that his dad had passed away this morning. He was a lovely man, and my heart is sad knowing that he is gone.

Given all that is happening in the world right now, all the social distancing measures, I'm guessing that having a wake and funeral will be hard. How do we make up for that? How do we tell Brian how much we liked his dad and how very sorry we are?

On Wednesday (3/25/20) morning at 10:30am at  12 Dana Road a group is gathering to salute Bill as his hearse passes his home. You could drive over and join the other cars in our in-vehicle, social-distancing send off.