Parallel Lives – Bill Robinson Saves the Farmer’s Market

By Richard Odell

Identifying points of origin is like picking up ice cream with one’s fingers. One never gets all of it. It might be said, however, the Farmers’ Market we have today began with some now forgotten young man selling oranges by the drop-off box at the post office. This marketing genius was soon joined by Mary Hutchinson with her baked goods, along with several others, and soon the whole lot was in need of more space.

Mary Brown, the realtor, generously offered her vacant lot north of the bank, and soon, like flies on a dead squirrel, the place was filled with all manner of local and itinerant tradespeople – bakers, wool spinners, plant vendors, aspiring farmers, fortune tellers, and even two Orthodox monks who provided coffee and books, that all might be wakeful. Thus was born the Saturday Market.

In the midst of this circus was a plywood booth – something I’m sure Mary Brown never saw coming – that housed the neophyte farmers of the newly formed Vashon Island Grower’s Association. I was not quite a charter member, but I did help hoist the sign atop the booth, and, having not yet found my stride in flower growing, brought my own weekly offering of beets and lettuce – two things I didn’t particularly care for.

And one Saturday morning, inching towards our enclave with all hope of inclusion (there’s a saying – I don’t know from where – “the hero enters last”), came one Bill Robinson, in his late 70s, I think, who with his wife Ida had founded Robinson Furniture, where today is the VoV. He was also an experienced farmer, something we were in dire need of, working a sizeable home garden on Beall Road. Among various crops, he grew raspberries, by the sale of which – stay seated for this – he paid his property taxes. Announcing to us that he didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes – we interrupted him, “Dude, get in here.”

Bill had given my brother his first paid job in life, helping with furniture deliveries, and Ida had provided me my first paid job in life, mowing the lawn at the library, now the Senior Center. Bill was robust and busy, even finding time to take his tractor on the road to mow hay, as needed. Ida was honest and blunt-spoken. Bill’s kinda girl. As Norm Matthews, Bill’s good friend, once told me, “I always know where I stand with Ida.” Yeah. And your standing maybe contrary to her position didn’t diminish her fair-mindedness and hospitality towards you. An attitude the Island could use more of, these days.

VIGA was mostly college types, with a few rough characters like myself thrown in. New School, organic, Wendell Berry adherents. The whole nine yards. Our seasonal group dinners usually featured wine, gourmet entrees, chocolate mousse, mixed with conversations about slugs, manure, and how many different ways you could kill the same chicken. Bill, our senior in age and experience, with his ties to the Island’s agricultural history, was Old School, all the way, but the differences never came up, as far as I recall. He once looked upon my own operation and asked, with sincere curiosity, about the raised beds. Hadn’t seen those before. The old man both shared and learned.

Well, long story short, the Saturday Market ran afoul of the landowner, and for good reason. The whole ungainly mess had grown beyond expectations. The last nerve snapped at Christmas season, when an enormous tent, complete with hobo-style burn barrel, was erected without warning, and holiday shoppers were invited in to muck up the lot to a muddy mess. Plug pulled, marketeers scattered. Mary Brown had had enough. A new growing season approached, and our little booth was marked for demolition, with no alternative in sight.

We gathered at the home of Michelle Crawford, of Pacific Potager fame, with Bill in attendance, to brainstorm the situation. No solutions occurred. Finally, someone piped up, “Maybe if there was someone who could influence Mary Brown. Talk to her, convince her to let us stay.” Someone put their arm around Bill, and everyone laughed. No stranger to thorny business issues, and the personalities involved, Bill hung his head and muttered, “What have I got myself into?” But he went forth on our behalf. And he prevailed.

For the next few seasons, the VIGA booth stood alone on the broad lawn, a dozen of us, or so, huddled together in all manner of weather. Often things were slow, but we were a stubborn bunch. As market manager, I made a contest of trying to beat Bill as the first one to show up in the morning. Rarely did I win, and when I did start to win, it was because Bill’s health had begun to fail. The Big C had shown up at his door.

VIGA’s resiliency paid off, in time. With grants and community contributions, we were able to buy the property, to erect the building that stands there now, and to bring back the craftspeople, now all local vendors. Bill died not long before the new market he helped make possible opened up to a new era. But shortly before he died he requested that VIGA’s members should play a role in his memorial service. Dare I say it? I think he loved us.

I’ve no idea what Bill said to Mary Brown on our behalf, and I don’t think it matters. I’ve no doubt it was more about Bill’s standing in the community than anything he had to say. It was not about persuasion or assurance, but a lifetime lived in the eyes of his neighbors. If we were okay with Bill, we were okay with Mary Brown.

As for Mary Brown, she, like Bill, likely got the short end of the thank-you stick. She had nothing to gain and much to lose by letting us use her property. More often regarded in trepidation than in gratitude, she remained the cornerstone and benefactor of our efforts.

Special thanks, as well, are due those patrons of the Market’s early, plywood booth days (you know who you are) who came out in the wind and rain, and even the snow, to support us. Like Bill and Mary, you saw us through to more prosperous times.