Jon Bigwood (1952-2007)
Randi's and my close friend on the Cape, Jon Bigwood, died a year ago this month of lung cancer. I wrote this shortly after and sent it to some friends. I dreamt of Jon last night. It was a dream in which there were a lot of people I didn’t know and others I didn’t particularly care for. Bigwood suddenly appeared in the kitchen, puffing on his pipe. “Let’s get out of here,“ he said. It’s exactly what he would have said in the situation, and it echoed the Warren Zevon line in The Mutineer, which I posted last night. I was delighted. And I woke up feeling great for having seen him, and unspeakably sad for having lost him. Anyway, this is for Jon: Where to start. Bigwood. This was a guy who designed and built his own house in Marstons Mills on Cape Cod when he was in his early 30s, and then built 70 foot steel-hulled fishing trawlers in the back yard. He not only designed and built fishing boats, but captained them out in the winter wilds of George's Bank.
Bigwood was brains and guts and toughness and generosity. When Randi and I got married we had a small family ceremony because Rand'is mother had been ill. Jon's wife Perrie wanted to throw us a party. Jon threw a huge party. DJ, open bar, everyone we could think of inviting, and a banner plane that flew over Cape Cod with our names and our love trailing, and most of us ended up naked in the pool at 3 a.m. Jon did nothing half way. Neither did you, if you were with him.
In younger and more foolish days, I remember waking up in his house with some of the worst hangovers of my life and Jon was always already out in the shop having been drilling steel for two hours. When he wanted us to attend Perrie's birthday party, he flew his "Sky King" plane out to Westchester New York to pick us up. Their wedding in Newport, oohh the weekend of their wedding . . .so many stories we must keep to ourselves, right there.
Years later, when I got my own sail boat, Jon decided we'd meet somewhere on Buzzard's Bay. 235 square miles of water, 35 nautical miles from his dock off Nantucket sound. I had no radio, it was pre-cell phones. Just give me your sail number and the length of the boat, he said. I did. He headed toward me, thinking about roughly the time I left, the direction and the speed of the winds I was facing, and there, just when he said he'd be, he was. When we came in to Warr's boatyard where I moored, the owner immediately waived the fee for Jon's boat and pointed him to best slip. I knew Bigwood. I, with my little Herreshoff Marlin, was treated with new respect after that.
Randi went to see them not long after Jon was diagnosed with cancer last year. They had a special bond. Randi and Perrie were the closest of friends. Randi's dad, a marine architect and tough old Yankee in his own right, was something of a mentor to John when he was building boats. They were soul mates among those who suffered no fools. When Randi saw Jon, he took her out to an idyllic inlet in Osterville near where he moored his cruiser in exchange for having designed and built an oyster aquaculture farm. Randi said Jon was determined ready and confident to what needed to be done to beat his cancer, but still he slipped away near the end of her visit to avoid a good-bye. That was Jon.
Randi just wrote me an email from work, passing along his obit in the Cape Cod Times, "I know we were privileged to have been part of an inner circle in Jon's life. It was a small circle. The obit is sparse, but somehow gets to the heart of him too, I think. He's gone to join the old salt mariners and the craziest of the partying artists we've lost over the years, is the way I think of it."
The obit she referred to:
MARSTONS MILLS - Jonathan L. Bigwood, 55, died on Jan. 17, 2007, at his home, surrounded by his family.
He was the son of the late Waldo Emerson and Johanna (Boemig) Bigwood; husband of Peryntha (Patton) Bigwood; father of Justin Emerson Bigwood of Sandwich >and Jonathan Trevor Bigwood of Marstons Mills; and brother of Matthew Bigwood and his wife Mary of Marstons Mills. He also leaves many cousins,nieces
and nephews.
Jonathan was gifted with many talents. Being home tutored and an advanced thinker, he excelled in all areas of industrial technologies.
He was a passionate man, loved his family, animals, cooking, flying,boating, carpentry and commercial fishing, and always enjoyed a good challenge in life.
A celebration of his life will be held on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007, at 1 p.m. at Bigwood Corp., 57 Industrial Drive, Mashpee. Burial will be private.
>Published in the Cape Cod Times on 1/19/2007.
I just smiled as I read that his father and teacher was named Waldo Emerson Bigwood. Self-reliance ran with the testosterone in his blood, connected his heart to his mind. Yep, Jon Bigwood was a prince, polymath, autodidact, and a pirate. His time came much too soon. A comet of man.
