By Rebecca Brown
Rufus mowing the trail at the Whipple Farm Field in Sugar Hill. (Carl Martland photo)
One of ACT’s great champions has left us. Rufus Perkins, a founder, long time trustee, and even longer time volunteer, died March 13 after a short bout with cancer. He was 80 years old.
Twenty years ago, I didn’t know Rufus. I’d lived in Sugar Hill several years, and Rufus was the second home owner who occasionally drove by on his way to his place up the hill. I was told he was an economist, and from Cambridge, so I assumed he’d be elitist, aloof, even somewhat intimidating. But then the proposal for 10 house lots on our collective backyard woods came along, and Rufus was among the neighbors I asked to gather to discuss our options.
In the subsequent time of forming ACT and beginning our work protecting land, Rufus became for me one of the kindest and most decent people I’ve ever known. Yes, he possessed a prodigious intellect. But his mind was matched with a down to earth presence, and a sense of humor – sometimes devilish and other times disarmingly childlike – that made him eminently approachable and enabled him to work effectively with people very different from himself. He devoted himself to helping build ACT, and became my most constant source of encouragement, as well as ally in creative thinking, problem solving, and reflection for the next 20 years.
We learned about this business of land conservation together, attending workshops and seminars. (One year, while at a national land trust conference in Nashville, he let it slip that it was his birthday. We celebrated, improbably, by attending an NHL hockey game.) Most of all we learned by doing, and were never hesitant to question ourselves and each other. We didn't always see eye to eye, but we always resolved whatever we were doing and went on to the next thing. From pitching in on everything from financial management and member database creation to mail merges and envelope printing, as well as mowing fields and trails, Rufus was the consummate volunteer.
As we got to know each other and shared stories, I imagined him riding his motorcycle cross country when he was a young man, being at Berkeley in the ‘60s, and living and working in Saudi Arabia. Rufus was a throwback, a gentleman of old Boston stock who was the perfect date, but never married.
Rufus was independent to the core, and that occasionally provided some grist for our companionable mill. For instance, he steadfastly refused to wear protective gear when wielding his chainsaw. That, coupled with the fact that he usually worked alone unless he was on some ACT work party, made me a bit nervous. So I’d raise an eyebrow, but nothing more. Then one day after a bad storm I walked up the hill to see how he’d fared. I found him, chainsaw in hand, about to tackle a huge pine that had fallen across the road, bringing with it a tangle of lesser trees. The pine hung about six feet in the air. Cutting into that mess was a recipe for disaster. I said as much, but Rufus insisted it was fine, why wait for the power company, etc. etc. He revved the saw. I forget exactly what I said next. It may have included some unrepeatable words, and maybe I threatened to never speak to him again. But he stopped.
Family members called Rufus’s work with ACT his second career, one that he relished and which brought him tremendous satisfaction. In his obituary, they wrote: Modest and unassuming, Rufus touched the lives of innumerable people, mentoring some, playing the role of beloved uncle or big brother to others. He will long be remembered for his gift as a conversationalist with wide-ranging interests, for his unexpected and outrageously funny comments, for his unfailing kindness to his friends and family, and for his devotion to the landscape that shaped his life and is his legacy.
A team of ACT volunteers has begun maintaining the trails on the Bronson Hill land Rufus held so dear. As a tribute to him, we hope more people will become involved with maintaining the trails and the land.
Rufus’s energy, passion, and love of the land will always be an inspiration to me, and I hope, to ACT.
