Remembrance by Irene Jackson

Remembrance of Bronson Crothers
I was honored to have the chance to spend the day before Bronson's surgery in August with him. Marianne was at work, and I was in the apartment in Acton, just to be there. Bronson spent most of the time sleeping, and it was gratifying to hear his deep snores. I told Marianne and Bronson later that afternoon that I kept thinking I was hearing my dog. She is also a very sincere sleeper. They laughed.
When Bronson did get up, he made it with difficulty to a chair in the living room. His features had been transformed, his face puffy and his hair thin, but once we got talking it was clear that he was still himself, struggling to be so, but still Bronson. He was extraordinarily fair­minded and kind. Despite his suffering, he managed to keep a sense of humor. I had spent the time while he slept making camping reservations for a college tour that we were planning with our daughter, Sylvia. I told him about this, and he told me that he didn't like to camp. "Well", he said, "I can't fairly say I don't like it since I only really tried it once." He said he had gone on some sort of search and rescue trip, I believe, and he had slept in a lean­to on a hard floor, and his back had gone out. He said he wasn't much use after that and had not tried camping again. He said he also hated bugs. Well, not all bugs, but mosquitos. Well, he did not hate them, they were just doing what mosquitos do . . . but he wasn't much of a one for spending time with them.
He asked about which schools Sylvia was applying to, and when he heard that the list was fairly long, he told a story about how, when he was in high school, there was a guidance counselor that no one liked, so a friend of his decided to get him back by applying to one school after another ­­ he wasn't sure how many ­­ just to give the guidance counselor more work (suburban teenage crime ­­ my comment). It may not seem like much that we had these conversations, but it was extraordinary in that Bronson had to struggle to find each word, had to fight against his immense fatigue to keep a thread going, and in all of that had the ability to laugh.
It was also extraordinary that he maintained a focus on others. We talked about my daughter's college tour, not about his terrible illness. This focus on others was also clear when Bronson's sister Bronwyn called. He talked with her for a few minutes and encouraged her to take care of herself since she also had an illness at the time. It was only when he got off the phone that he broke down into sobs. It was clear throughout Bronson's illness ­­ I also got to see him shortly after he was diagnosed ­­ that his biggest pain was in feeling the grief that others would feel at his loss. When he was in the hospital after his diagnosis, he was okay with seeing me, since ours was a secondary friendship. His primary friendship was with my husband, Bob, and he was finding it difficult to face Bob's grief.
I was struck by the depth of Bronson's love for Bob and for his family, in that it seemed his greatest fear and pain was felt through his empathy with them. This was apparent when Marianne came home for lunch. She made soup and sandwiches for us. Bronson ate, though it was difficult for him. He repeatedly apologised for putting Marianne to the trouble. That's okay, she kept saying. I am profoundly grateful to both Bronson and Marianne for turning to us in this

time of deepest difficulty. I feel honored to have witnessed their love and their courage and to have been a small part of their comfort in this terrible ordeal. It is good to have friends. I will always look upon the way Bronson died as a reflection of his extraordinary character. Bob and I used to speak, jokingly, of how Bronson was like the character Spock in Star Trek, so logical. But there was an unselfishness, a fair­mindedness, in that logical manner that really shone through as a very deep love for others. We miss him.
Irene Jackson December 29, 2015 

Quotes Jock used at the memorial service

If you love someone, can you let it show?
Hold them close and tell them so they know.
It's too late by the grave
Give them all the love you have every day.
                  from "Frankie and Johnnie" by Garnet Rogers

"Nothing ever dies, it simply changes form"
                        - Albert Einstein

Memories from Katrina van Dusen

Remembering Bronson….

Bronson came to my door in Freeport one summer day in 1988 to see if I wanted to go windsurfing on Back Cove in Portland (one of his serial hobbies, as Chaffee said.) He was working at Bath Iron Works and living in Brunswick and I was on maternity leave at home with baby Matthew. I told Bronson that there was no way I could go with him.

I marveled at how two people, who the year before could have been up to similar activities, were now living in very different worlds. I relished the idea that going windsurfing on Back Cove was really something that I might have been able to do, and that Bronson imagined me ready to join him. Meanwhile I was leaking breast milk, and just trying to manage to make a sandwich for my lunch, while juggling a cute little baby.

Earlier, around 1978, my parents were sailing the Slugger Ann over to Islesford to share the boat with the other side of my family. My dad had loaded the boat with Slugger’s mooring, a large mushroom.  I imagine my parents were reaching along off Bar Harbor, mainsail cleated, enjoying a picnic lunch, when a williwaw blew down from the mountains and swamped them before they could free the mainsheet. With the heavy anchor in the bow, the boat filled with water and started to sink. My parents climbed into the dinghy they were towing and were rescued by a nearby boat.

I was out West that summer, so this is all a story I heard, but I think my Dad commissioned the Orono and Sorrento boys, Jock, Bronson and David Wellman to see if they could find the Slugger, using a compass bearing for the location where she sank. They enlisted Charlie Crothers and the Synia to help out. Miraculously one September day, they found and tried to raise her. They couldn’t get her floating that first day, but they were able to move her over next to one of the Porcupine Islands and secure a line from her to a tree on the island. When they got back to continue the rescue operation several days later, she was gone.

A couple of months later Sturgis Haskins reported to my dad that a boat that looked a lot like Slugger Ann was in a fisherman’s yard in Bar Harbor. We scouted it out. It was Slugger and my dad had to buy her back.

I am probably missing pieces of this story and I can only imagine the conversations the crew of Sorrento boys had as they planned and executed this mission. Any of you can chime in with the rest of the story??? All these years later, the Slugger Ann carries on, and I am very appreciative that she was recovered from the deep.

Thinking way back, I remember how best friends, Howard Wellman and Bronson, when walking back and forth between each other’s houses, resorted to walking (bush whacking?) behind Junior’s house across the street to avoid the ever terrifying Loki, the Hull’s German shepherd.

Fran Ballard's memories

You should know that some of my fondest Sorrento memories are about Bronson.   We connected there for a couple of summers after my father bought Sally Lightfoot, the Swedish Folkboat he bought from Lake Champlain. Somehow that boat became an object of Bronson’s attention, and that introduced me to his funny world of enthusiasm, intellect and tinkering.  Bronson was on board Sally Lightfoot during one of her first Sorrento regattas.  She moved so slowly that he spent parts of the race hiding in the cabin to avoid being seen on boat.  Bronson convinced us that the right thing to do was to scrub the bottom clean by tying the boat by her mast along the Wheatland dock gangway at high tide, and then standing her on her keel as the tide went out so that she was totally out of the water.  I have a grainy photo of this in an album that still makes me cringe....my dad's new purchase balanced on the rocks (and conveniently forgetting to tell him about it!).  But it all ended well and we started again with a clean bottom.  Our preferred activity thereafter was late night sails, often with Andrew Gazis.  Sensing that there was an evening wind (when there was not) Bronson would convince us to take a sail in the middle of the night.  With all cabin and running lights on and tea brewing on the stove Bronson would tweak sails and fittings, often guided by underlying mathematical and physics theories.  We set spinnakers trying to catch wind that, at best, was barely there.  I still have the best memories of these evening sails floating around the back bay laughing with Bronson and others.

I saw Bronson a couple of years ago when he was up in Sorrento for a visit.  It had been a long time since I had seen him, but it was great to see that he remained the light-hearted, interested and enthusiastic person I remembered.  I recall his trying to explain to me the product that we was working on.  It was way above my head, but he was way into it. It was pure Bronson.  

I will always remember Bronson as a warm, comfortable and interesting person to be around.  I'll miss knowing that he is there as a friend. But I also know that he lived a life full of interest, friends and laughter that will echo on in our lives for a long time.  

Fran 

A Mentor, A Friend, An Uncle

Dear Bronson,

It is so hard to know where to begin...with the memories flooding in... so I am going to start simply by just saying "thank you".

Thank you for Saturday and Monday IOD racing.  For driving me over when I was too young to drive myself.  Thank you for teaching me what it meant to be good crew...to laugh when we were delayed, sing when we were behind and cheer when we won...and how to make Jock cringe with Kenny Rogers ballads.  Or dance down the dock as you belted out "Sail like an Egyptian...".

You taught me skills from driving stick shift to driving a whaler.  How to trim a main, how to trim a kite. You rescued my dismantled car and helped me put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.  You showed me that it is ok to run through hobbies, try new things and new hairdos...your mohawk was my favorite.

From you I learned the importance of multi-tasking, demonstrated as you drove with your knee while opening a Harbor Bar and simultaneously lecturing on a plethora of topics - music, cars, motorcycles, family...

You were an example of how to be an individual.  You were both quiet and opinionated, athletic and intellectual.  Risk taking yet conservative and outgoing yet introverted.  And always committed to those you love.

In short, thank you for being a coach, a mentor, a friend, an uncle...thank you for being you.

Yours truly,
Chafee

letter from Allison Humenuk

Bronson was one of the first people we met in Sorrento and he quickly became someone we all looked forward to spending time with - hiking, sailing, eating meals and giving each other shit.

Most of what I know about sailing comes from crewing for him in weekly S-boat races. I was pretty much thumbs, but he kept inviting me to be part of his team. This was over 30 years ago (when we first met), but it is funny how memory works; going down to the Wheatland's dock to meet Bronson could have happened yesterday.

One of my favorite photos is of Bronson sitting on the Artemis's boom, leaning into the dial and smiling to someone just off frame. A keeper!

Spinnaker start

One of my most vivid memories of times with Bronson came while racing sailboats. When I first started seeing Bronson’s older brother Jock I was recruited to crew on the International One Design that Jock was racing. I was assigned to manage the foredeck – to get the spinnaker up on the downwind legs. While I had done that job on S boats for many years I had not done it on an IOD. Bronson who had sailed with his brother for many years, took it upon himself to teach me about managing the IOD foredeck as he felt it should be run. Bronson was a man of many interests and when he developed an interest he immersed himself in it, studied up and generally became an authority on it. Once he considered himself an authority he happily held forth at length on the topic to any who asked questions. The day of the race in question Bronson insisted that I needed to practice spinnaker sets a few times before the start of the race. He critiqued each spinnaker set at length until on the third set we heard a gun. The race committee had begun the five minute starting sequence for the race, and we were above the line sailing under spinnaker toward all the boats getting ready to start. Bronson did not pause in his discourse as we crossed the line going the wrong way just in time to drop the spinnaker and start behind all the other boats. Despite the late start we did manage to make it to the first mark of the race first! I still have a very vivid memory of sailing under spinnaker towards a fleet of boats all coming at us while Bronson continued to lecture imperturbably.

Lisa Heyward