The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News.
By Joe Awe: William Doman Butcher. Born May 17, 1944, in Smyrna, Delaware. Came to Belize in July 1992 and never left.
There’s no short way to tell Bill Butcher’s story. Every time you start, some piece of it makes you laugh, and the next piece gets you right in the chest. So this is just going to be told the way you’d tell it sitting out on the verandah at the Aguada with him.
Smyrna
Bill was born May 17, 1944, in Smyrna, Delaware. He’s the oldest of nine. Anybody who knows what it means to be the oldest of nine knows he grew up fast. Somebody always needed something, and most of the time they went to Bill.
He spent his summers on his grandparents’ farm. That’s where he learned to work. Not the kind of working hard you do when somebody’s watching. Just work. Get up, get it done, don’t complain about it. He’s 82 now and he still lives that way.
His grandfather had a pig farm, and men from the prison came out to work on it. Bill was ten years old, driving the tractor, with those men riding in the back. And one day his grandfather told them straight out: “One thing. This is my grandson, Billy. You don’t call him boy.”
Sit with that for a second. A little Black boy in Delaware in the fifties. Grown men who could have called him anything they wanted, and nobody would have stopped them. And his grandfather just said no. Not him. Not my grandson.
Bill never forgot it. It’s probably why he treats everybody the same. Somebody important and the man cutting the grass get the same handshake and the same “How’s your family?” He knows what it feels like when somebody stands up for you. He’s been standing up for other people ever since.
College
He was the first one in his family to go to college. Delaware State, a historically Black university, business administration. Eight brothers and sisters were watching him. He went first so they’d know they could go too.
Catalina
It’s 1968. There’s a gala dance near Dover Air Force Base. Catalina Veronica Hernandez (Urbina) is in Dover because the husband of one of her close friends is about to leave for Vietnam. She gets invited to the gala. So does Bill.
He sees her in this gown and decides she must be rich. That’s how he always tells it: “I thought she was rich.” She wasn’t rich. She made that dress herself. Catalina was one of the top seamstresses back in the late fifties and sixties. Bill still tells that story like he just found out yesterday.
About three months after that dance, he proposed. And he picked the day: May 17th, his own birthday. Most people are happy just to get a cake on their birthday. Bill wanted a wife. And he got one. They were married on August 3, 1968. Ask him how he knew so fast and he just shrugs. “When you know, you know.” Oh, and he worked half a day on his wedding day. Then he went and got married. That’s Bill.
Allie
Belize was part of the Butcher family long before Bill ever set foot here. Their oldest son, Allie, was born to a very young Belizean mother, and she gave her baby to Catalina. Catalina raised him. And Bill fought tooth and nail, and that means tooth and nail, to get him to the States. Allie finally got there in May 1972, and Bill adopted him.
They let Allie choose his own last name. He chose Butcher.
That says more about the kind of father Bill is than anything else in this piece. He chose Butcher.
The Hustle
Bill always had a full-time job. And Bill always had something else going on the side. Supermarkets. Corner stores in the city. Arcades. A cleaning business. A flower shop. He helped his friends start a funeral home. If you had an idea, he wanted to help you make it happen.
Somewhere in the middle of all that is the Joe Biden story. Joe Biden went to the family’s church, back when the kids just knew him as the Senator, Uncle Joe. And one day, in downtown Wilmington, Bill and Joe Biden caught a purse snatcher together. Nobody’s making this up. The family still laughs about it.
The Porsche
About twenty-five years into the marriage, Bill and Catalina came to Belize for their anniversary. He loved it. He promised he’d come back every year, and he did.
After the third trip he went home, sat the kids down, and told them he was quitting his job, taking his savings, and moving to Belize.
They were sure he’d lost it. Full-blown midlife crisis. Except most men having a midlife crisis go out and buy a Porsche. Bill already had the Porsche. A 911. So he traded it in for a used U-Haul. A U-Haul. This man loves cars more than just about anything, and he gave up a 911 for a moving truck. Then he drove it from upstate New York all the way down to Belize.
So said, so done. That’s how he talks and that’s how he lives.
He got here in July 1992.
The Crazy Gringo
The plan was a little bed-and-breakfast. That didn’t last long. The Aguada came to life instead, and Bill became one of the small hoteliers in Santa Elena, back when Santa Elena was still figuring out what it was going to be.
Back then the Aguada was out in the bush. Bill likes to tell how he was hanging out one day and heard some people laughing about “the crazy gringo opening a hotel back in the bush.” He turned around and told them, “One day that highway is going to pass in the back of the bush, right in front of my hotel.” Twenty-four years later, it did. He loves telling that one. He’s earned it.
Serving
Bill didn’t come here to sit down. He was on the board of the new organization we now know as PACT. He was president of the local BTIA chapter. He’s been on the CET board for over fifteen years, plus more committees than anybody can list.
But Rotary is where his heart is. He’s been with the Rotary Club of San Ignacio for almost twenty-eight years. He’s president again this year, and nobody in that club has been president more times than him.
What He Passed On
You can see Bill in all three of his kids. His middle child, Shalue, is the only one who followed him and Catalina to Belize. She’s a Rotarian too, and president of the Cayo Cancer Care Foundation. Nobody had to tell her to turn out like her father. She just grew up watching him show up for people every single day, and one day she was doing it too.
The baby, Tarun Johnson, got the business side of him. At home she was always Neidy. Everywhere else she’s Tarun. She has her own salon. She does customized gifts. She’s always got some new thing going. Watching her is like watching Bill at thirty. Same hustle. Same “let me figure this out.”
And Allie, the one who chose the name. All three of them carry Bill around with them, just in different ways.
The Food
Cow foot soup. Fried chicken. Southern-style potato salad, the real kind. But if you ever asked him for his last meal, the one plate he’d want before he leaves this earth, he wouldn’t even have to think about it. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.
After that, just get him going on cars. You’ll be there all night.
One of Us
Bill came to Belize thirty-four years ago in a U-Haul that everybody back home thought was a terrible idea. Now he’s as much a part of Cayo as anybody born here. He’s eaten at our tables. He’s stood with us at funerals. He’s shown up for every fundraiser, every meeting, every time somebody needed a hand.
He isn’t the American who moved to Belize. He hasn’t been for a long time.
So Bill, we don’t say it enough. Thank you. For Catalina. For Allie, Shalue and Tarun. For choosing this place and staying. For showing all of us what it looks like to give your life to the people around you. For the stories. For that laugh. Everybody here already knows it, so we’ll just say it out loud.
You’re one of us.
Bill you da wan a we!
Touch lives. Change the world.
The post Bill you da wan a we! appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not necessarily those of Breaking Belize News. By Joe Awe: William Doman Butcher. Born May 17, 1944, in Smyrna, Delaware. Came to Belize in July 1992 and never left. There’s no short way to tell Bill Butcher’s story. Every time you start, some
The post Bill you da wan a we! appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
