“We recognize that there are no trivial occurrences in life if we get the right focus on them.”
Bill Moeller, who traveled the land in the garb and words of the great Twain, had a gift for that kind of focus — examining details and daily occurrences from all sides, turning and ruminating on them until he found a glint of wisdom, humor or insight to share.
Over nearly 15 years of columns in this newspaper, he had a gift for focusing on the big and little details and helping us see them, too.
He loved being a columnist, saying it was undoubtedly the part of his unique life for which he would be best remembered. Now, as we say goodbye to Bill after his death at age 96, it’s his columns that will resonate with us.
A truly great columnist lets us get to know him- or herself while also helping us as a community get to know ourselves. Sometimes the columnist is a companion, sharing little snippets of life to let us know that we’re not alone; sometimes a leader, being willing to take the heat for calling out wrongs and proposing bold solutions; sometimes a dreamer, casting a vision for us to follow toward a better tomorrow.
Bill was all of that. He had the rare mix of knowledge, opinion, charm and chutzpah that makes for enduring and endearing success as a columnist, plus the talents of being a great storyteller and writer. It all combined to make his column a weekly treat for folks across Lewis County (even if sometimes he admitted to simply trying to fill space with “humorous clap trap”).
His community writing dated at least back to the 1960s, when he attended Centralia College as an adult. There he published an underground newspaper which, if my memory serves, was called The Banana Slug.
He went on to write fiction and poetry, including a series of short detective stories he wrote based around the character of a crime-solving small-town mayor. (Having served as mayor of Centralia, this might have been a little bit of aspirational autobiographical fiction).
One of these stories was accepted for publication in a, shall we say, “gentleman’s magazine” whose cover image featured a young lady in lace and not much else.
Bill told me that he was absolutely safe publishing this story under his own name in such a scandalous magazine, because anyone who wanted to use his affiliation with the publication against him in the political arena would first have to admit to reading it himself.
And then Bill laughed one of his hearty chuckles, absolutely tickled with both his logic and the fact that he had gotten away with it.
At The Chronicle he published many memorable columns following his curiosity, wandering mind and flights of fancy wherever they might lead.
In one case he discovered that the land beneath Plummer Lake was owned not by the city, but by four women. He detailed that surprising fact and followed up with twists and turns about taxes on their underwater ownership going up by 1,000%. He proposed 10 solutions that he called the Moeller Magical Method of Dealing With Catastrophes, or, “MMMODWC.”
In another, calling himself “the ancient dreamer,” he proposed converting the old city-owned golf course on Seminary Hill to an outdoor amphitheater — Centralia’s answer to the Hollywood Bowl.
That didn’t come to pass, but other ideas did, like his 2020 proposal for Centralia to honor World War II hero Dexter J. Kerstetter, the Hub City’s only resident ever to receive the Medal of Honor. “Has a local hero been forgotten?” Moeller asked. Soon, Kerstetter received his due with a sign along Mellen Street.
Bill also proposed a community garden and later got to dig the ceremonial first shovel full of dirt during groundbreaking.
The columns of Bill’s that I most treasure were those in which he talked about his experience in Korea. Few people are willing to tell of harrowing war experiences and have the skill to take us into the cold nights and chilling fire-fights.
He went into the most detail in a three-part series published in 2009. He described taking mittens off of a Chinese officer’s corpse, of becoming separated from his company in the middle of battle, and how he traveled alone on frostbitten feet as 200,000 Chinese soldiers surged forward.
Years later he followed up with a deeply personal Memorial Day column about how he believes that his own disappearance and presumed death could have been the reason that his war buddy went on a rampage that led to him being killed by a Chinese machine gun. The possibility that he caused his buddy’s death, Bill said, had haunted him for 75 years.
As I close this column, though, I can’t end it with something so gloomy. Bill liked to remind us of the fun in life, so I’ll share a bit of “doggerel” poetry that he once sent me about a very different war: a hard-fought gardening competition between neighbors that mellows into a warm friendship. It’s too long to quote here in full, but the opening gives a hint of its playful flavor:
Herkimer Holmes is as thin as old bones
His manner both dour and pedantic,
While Simeon Soames is a writer of poems:
Some silly, but some quite romantic.
And so with a smile, we’ll say farewell to our friend Bill Moeller, who at times could be cranky and genial, melancholy and mirthful, resigned but hopeful.
Can’t we all.
Thank you, you old dreamer, for all the stories and seeds you planted in our Lewis County soil. We’ll enjoy the flowers and think of you as we continue to work, play and be inspired to live out your life’s motto: “It's never too late to follow a dream.”
Brian Mittge has covered Lewis County area life for Chronicle since 2000. He can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
