This week marks the end of an era on WYSO as Bill Felker’s Poor Will's Almanack comes to an end.
WYSO’s Jerry Kenney spoke with Felker about ending his weekly segments because of the challenges macular degeneration has put before him. And they talk about the legacy of his ideas and observations over the last 40 years.
This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Bill Felker: I've been fortunate to have a place to share my ideas. And it started with the Yellow Springs News back in 1984, And the arrival at WYSO was a wonderful opportunity for me. In 2005 is when we started putting this together and, like my newspaper columns, this is a chance to kind of work out my ideas as well as my identity, not only in private, but actually shape, or sharing that with other people, which is really cool.
It was really a great opportunity because I got to work with the staff here and understand a little bit about radio, but most of all, it was the camaraderie and just the friendly context for working. As the years went by, I was able to use the radio almanack, the podcasts, to explore a number of themes or of ideas that I had, a lot of them about time and nature and how all those aspects of the seasons impacted me and what I thought about them.
So it's been a great run, because without sharing your ideas, they may not develop.
And I think that was the opportunity for me, and that's why I'm really grateful to have had that opportunity to share what I was thinking, to have an excuse to share what I was thinking and play with it and see how it came back year after year. There's a lot of growth in that, as well as a sense of belonging to it. And that happens with me being a kind of a hermit. It's great to be able to share those things in public, things that you really don't get a chance to share. So I feel good about time with WYSO. I wish I could continue, but that's another story. I could preach about macular degenerative disease, which has taken away my ability to read. It's interesting. I can type, but I can't read what I've written and so my partner, Jill, helps out a lot. And I'm grateful for Siri, the technological advances of the past decade or so since I started.
Jerry Kenney: So it's with some reluctance that this season of your life with Poor Will's Almanack is coming to a close on WYSO, but over 40 years of prolific thinking and writing and sharing is quite an achievement. And I know our listeners appreciate it. So there's a parallel between seasonal changes that you've been talking about for decades and seasonal changes that take place in people's lives.
Felker: Yeah, actually, there is definitely a parallel. And I was thinking about it the other day. This would have been a podcast at some point that when I turned 80 a few years ago, I realized, well, I've been realizing through the years that there really, after retirement, society doesn't have a playbook for you. And that hits a lot of people in different ways.
I was lucky enough to have the podcasts or the outlet with WYSO, as well as the newspaper to make things work for me and give me a sense of being able to communicate and still stay alive in the society. I suppose everybody who gets this age sort of is wondering about dying or about moving to an assisted living center. I have an older sister who's four years older than I am who just made that move. So again, that's not something we necessarily look forward to, right? You think of that maybe as pulling yourself out of one society and into a society that's really quite different in its long-term goals.
As I think about time and the different seasons and seasons within the seasons and so forth, then there's plenty of food for thought. There is a great playbook in the seasons for reaching a pivotal point in your physical vitality that, you know, that's very instructive. It's not necessarily a new idea, but when you are actually living it, it's pretty great because, of course, every 12 months, the year teaches you what's going to happen to you and what has happened, and it's a cycle of remembrance and creation that I would be lost without it.
When I was a teenager, I went to a seminary, and I think probably what I took away from that most of all was the idea of circular time. In Christian liturgy, the story of Christianity repeats every year and as a teenager I'd never thought of that. But the older I get, the more important the circular idea becomes, no matter what story you put with it. But, um... This time, instead of the story of Christianity, really in the sense I've got my own story that I relive and that I think about when I'm taking stock, how do I feel today? Sometimes I laugh at the idea of an interview question, where are you gonna be? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Well, at 84, I don't know. And so you have to create the story. and that's a lot of fun. I think I'll still keep doing that, but I'll miss WYSO too.
Kenney: I have often tagged out the Almanack with "Bill Felker, bringing clarity to the living world around us" because just the timing and the pacing of these segments that you've produced for WYSO over the years, they kind of give you a break from the often, or most always, cacophonous news cycle that we put you right in the middle of. How do you think of the Almanack and its purpose?
Felker: Well, I think of it as, in a sense, a tool for my own ideas. As probably everybody who keeps a diary or a journal or writes knows, you don't know what you think until you write it down or until you say it. And so there's been that side of it, that myself, that my ideas, they grow through this process.
It's also given me a wonderful excuse to take notes, take more notes, and to try to put things together. And I think for everybody, that's a universal issue. You know, do things make sense? You know especially in the times in which we live in, you know, there's a lot of anxiety in the world and there's a lot of soul searching in that. What should I do? How should I act? And all of those things come out, I think, as we pause to make sense out of the universe.
Kenney: You speak of the almanack as a diary of sorts. What have you heard from listeners over the years about what it's meant to them?
Felker: Well, you often don't get a lot of feedback. It's like being a teacher. You know, you're in the classroom, but you don't really know how you affect people. Did you put them to sleep or, you know, whatever? When you have an audience in front of you, that's different, but I have had some wonderful comments and thoughts and letters and so forth from people.
But I think probably two of the most interesting or really rewarding things for me is I was working. at Village Artisans, selling my hand-bound books about two or three years ago. And I was sitting there at the desk and a man came in and my name was on the desk as the person who was working that day. And he said to me, he said, and as he walked through, I mean, it was maybe a 15 second encounter. And he says, 'thanks for what you do. I have started my own day book and keep track of things now.' And the way he said it and what he said, you know, just somehow made everything worthwhile because that's kind of what I was hoping for. You don't want people to imitate you. You want people to find their own way. And if you are part of that, that's a great gift. It's really a gift.
In addition to the comments and so forth, over the years I have put together and published through Kindle, a 12-volume set of my notes and thoughts called The Day Book for the Year in Yellow Springs. And, you know, most people aren't interested in getting 12 volumes of notes about the weather and what's blooming. But when people want that, or they say, gee, I wish I could have that, or send me all 12 books, that's really exciting, not because I make any money, which I don't, but because it feels good to be able to put something in a box and say, here's my life of the last 40 years. You wanna look at it, right? Does it make sense to you? Is it important to you? And all of the diary notes that I've made are in the day books. And in a sense, you know, it's not something you can read like a novel, but it's something that, oh, okay, you know, what is today? March 28, I don't know, 27. You can look that up in the Day Book again, there's data, there's weather, and then there is a sample of 40 years of walks in the woods and thoughts. It's fun to have people contribute to that, too. People say, hey, I saw 100 sandhill cranes today. Or somebody will call up and say, there's such-and-such a frog down at the pond, and all kinds of things. he Italian lizards were migrating north. from Cincinnati and would soon reach Yellow Springs, Ohio. Okay, you know, all of that's kind of cool. And it's sharing. That's the whole thing. You know, there's nothing outside of that. You know? We are alive. We're in the world and we're sharing what we feel and see.
Kenney: Well, we appreciate what you have shared over the last 40 years, and I really appreciate the conversation today as we air this week the final episode of Poor Will's Almanack. Bill Felker, thanks so much for what you've done for WYSO, WYSOs listeners, and your reading public over the years. We really appreciate it.
Felker: Well, Jerry, the thanks is mine, because it's been a real life-changing journey, and I don't know if I'll have a comeback. I don' think that there's going to be a change for the better in my eyesight, but who knows what may happen. So thanks to you and the staff here and all of WYSO, and especially to all the people out there who have taken part in this journey of mine. Thank you.
