Jonathan P. Baird

My friend Sol died on March 2. Death ruthlessly snatched him away at age 74. The speed of it all is still shocking. He was playing tennis in January.

One of the most difficult aspects of aging is losing your friends. I saw that happen with my parent’s friends, getting picked off one by one. Sol was a very good friend, kind and big-hearted. As Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, and I take license, I am not resigned to this death.

Sol and I got acquainted around the end of 2018. He had reached out and organized get-togethers of some writers of Concord Monitor “My Turns” He and I often visited on the weekend.

Sol was a social organizer and he took the initiative to set up lunches with many of his friends. He had a wide circle. He loved good food and we hit spots in and around New London. He was a known quantity at the Millstone at 74 Main in New London. When you would go in they would ask, “Are you with Sol?”

Being a strong environmentalist was a major passion in Sol’s life. I remember his columns about people who see the earth as a dead rock. He most emphatically did not. He saw everything as inter-connected and having its own unique vibratory life force.

Sol was in touch with the earth as a hardcore gardener. He proudly showed me his raised beds. For forty years, he perfected his garden. He was very influenced by a book he read in 1978, The One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka. Fukuoka had a minimalist approach to gardening that proved highly effective

Sol worried about our absurd carelessness with Mother Earth. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just called the climate crisis “code red for humanity”. Sol’s attitude reminded me of a Tennessee Williams quote:

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”

He was not a fatalist, however. In his own way, Sol remained an activist.

I do not know many members of Sol’s family but he was devoted to it. He was proud of his daughter Jen, who is an artist and his granddaughter, Eliza. He loved to show me Jen’s art. He lit up at just the mention of Eliza. He treasured his time with his granddaughter.

Sol looked to the example of indigenous people who understood their connection to the natural world and lived in harmony with it. A Native American chant captures Sol’s spirit:

“Walk tall as the trees; live strong as the mountains; be gentle as the spring winds; keep the warmth of summer in your heart, and the Great Spirit will always be with you.”