William Slater, known variously as Bill, Billy or Weeyum, lived among us here in the lower Skagit River area some forty years. He hailed from the other coast, an estuary that had been famously spoiled.

Bill taught art for a while in New York City at Hunter College and said he hated it. He had befriended some abstract expressionists of that time and place and was scheduled to debut at one of the city's most illustrious galleries. And just as his star was rising, he bailed. After a good long meander through the United States, he found his way to a place his friend Tom Robbins described as "far f...