Hi Carole,
I discovered The Updates was going to my spam folder — eek!
Thank you, Terry Wise
Terry,
Thanks, I am posting your letter of discovery in the next issue so folks will get in the habit of checking spam. SU has so many subscribers now that some servers do relegate it to that folder.
Carole
Dear Dr. Owens,
All of us at Berkshire Natural Resources Council (BNRC) are deeply saddened about the passing of its founder and champion, George Wislocki.
I’m so glad to have had the chance to get to know and learn from him in the last six years. George had an incalculably important role in creating the Berkshires we know and love. It’s impossible to imagine what our hills, forests, and fields would look like if he hadn’t been such a determined (stubborn) visionary, willing to “fight the good fight,” as past president of BNRC Tad Ames said.
Tad worked closely with George and knew him as well as anyone. He describes Geore’s legacy in a lovely essay:
On a sunny spring morning in 1991, tooling up Alford’s West Road in his red Chevy Blazer after a visit with a farmer in Egremont, George Wislocki spotted a man on a ladder, repairing the track of a fading barn’s sliding door, and slammed on the brakes.
“Ray, you SOB,” he yelled through the open passenger window.
The man grinned in recognition, dismounted slowly and sauntered around to George’s window, lighting a cigarette on the way. His eyes crinkled with intelligence and amusement above a bushy mustache.
“Be a good boy and give me one of those, would you, my friend?” George asked. Ray cackled, tapped a Marlboro out, and lit it for George.
“What’s new with you, George?” he asked.
“Fighting the good fight, babes,” George said.
People come to the Berkshires for culture and nature, and it is thanks in large part to George that we are surrounded by nature — our green forests, fields, and wetlands — which provide a home for our wildlife and a sanctuary for us humans. The Berkshires wouldn’t be the Berkshires without his great gifts and tireless work.
Jenny Hansell, President, BNRC
