To the editor:

It’s not an overstatement to say that last week Little Compton lost an icon. Chet (“Junior”) Wilkie, 84, collapsed while visiting an excavating job in town – his lifelong trade. But Chet was more than an excavating contractor. Archetypal swamp Yankee and dry-witted philosopher, Chet had a knack for showing up at just the right moment to save the day. Rather like the character, Clarence, in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Chet often seemed to materialize and save us from ourselves – usually while we were engaged in some folly involving trucks, tractors, or ladders.

I was moving excavation tailings on my tractor one day when an unbalanced load caused the machine to tip onto two wheels for a few seconds. When it had righted (and my heart rate returned to baseline), I found Chet calmly observing from his red pickup. “Yep, I don’t know what I woulda’ done, neither,” he said. But he lent me his heavier machine, so it wouldn’t happen again.

Another time, a neighbor’s car got bogged down in mud. Chet immediately appeared, as if by magic, with tow chain. Another friend was misguidedly trimming a tree with a chainsaw when his ladder slipped, jamming across utility lines. Chet suddenly materialized to summon a bucket truck. He was never called; he was just somehow there - to the point where we began to refer to him as our guardian angel for project stupidity.

I met Chet some 30 years ago when I built my home in town. He may not have known “where the bodies were buried,” but he knew where everything else was. His memory was more reliable than Dig-Safe when it came to underground hazards that didn’t appear on any map - this, because he had installed more subterranean structures in Little Compton than anyone else. “I know the DEM says I can build the leach field there, but it’s too close to a well that doesn’t appear on the map,” was the kind of thing he’d say – and he’d always be right.

Chet had a unique approach to accounts receivable. One might receive a bill over a year after he did work. When questioned about the delay, he’d reply, “Didn’t need it ‘til now.”

I worked with Chet over a period of six years to bury power, phone and cable lines in lower Chace Point. His was the voice of homespun, understated wisdom in heated meetings with Narragansett Electric, Verizon and Cox Cable. His humor could de-fuse any tense situation, and his practical solutions (he designed and fabricated a special piece of stone-handling equipment to backfill our trenches) enabled successful completion of the project.

For decades, Chet held “office hours” at 7 a.m. at the Commons Lunch. If you wanted to discuss a project, it was pointless to leave a phone message – just show up at office hours and you’d be granted an audience. And who can forget his cameo in the Men of Little Compton Calendar? Sexiest beefcake in there, hands-down.

Chet was a man of simple tastes. One exchange with him summed it up. Observing that he purchased large amounts of diesel for his equipment with a house charge at a local station, I once said, “You know, Chet, if you put that on an airline credit card, you’d have thousands of miles in no time!” Without missing a beat, he asked, “Why would I want to go anywhere?” Can’t argue with that.

Little Compton will miss Chet’s wit, wisdom and help in a jam. He was one-of-a-kind.

John Barylick

Little Compton