An Interview With BILL BEST

An Interview With BILL BEST by Rudy Thomas THOMAS: Who is Bill Best? BEST: I don't know whether I can tell you who he is, as much as I can tell you what he does right now. As we go further maybe who he is will come out. At this time he's a husband, son, father, grandfather, farmer, teacher, administrator , a friend to a lot of people, and foe to a few. THOMAS: As often happens when we try to answer the question of who am I, we end up saying what I am. Going on in that vein, what is Bill Best besides farmer, father, father figure to others? Put it in relation to Bill Best's background, community, those kinds of things. BEST: I was born in my grandmother Sanford's home, December 29, 1935 on a snowy night, first under the care of a midwife and finally a doctor because, according to my mother, I was a difficult birth. I was born into a family that came shortly to include my Grandmother and Grandfather Best and one or two cousins because it was during the depression and a lot of people didn't have any place to go. My mother and father were so busy on the farm just keeping our crops in shape that I was left primarily under the care of my Grandfather Best. I didn't know my Grandfather Sanford, because he died long before I was born. But I was so close to Grandpa Best that I apparently thought of him as my father. When my first grade teacher asked me my father's name I gave Grandpa's name instead. It gave her a good laugh and her first lesson to me was to tell me my father's name. I didn't sense that she was making fun of me but it embarrassed me anyway. But I had called Daddy by his first name and Mother by her first name. We were one of those extended families with several people fulfilling the parent role. I learned later from some of my twenty-two cousins who were grandchildren of my Grandfather Best, that I was the only grandchild that he could ever spend much time with. I remember spending a lot of time with him during my first seven years, before his death. He told me a lot of stories which I still remember. THOMAS: Okay. What you've been giving us is something that writers know. Gurney Norman says a story has a setting and the setting is aplace or a part of a place and sanity is simply knowing what story you are in. In your community when did you become aware of the fact that you were a part of a larger community? BEST: I became aware very quickly because I was one of only two children my age at church. We went to church every Sunday, frequently to both my father's church which was a Methodist church and to my mother's church which was a Baptist church. I gained a real sense of community early in my life, and I grew up knowing a real sense of my place. I was very special to an awful lot of people and I guess I just figured that that was the way it should be. When I started school though, I became aware that there were two sets of communities . The community of the school (it didn't bear much relationship to the community that was an extension of the home), and the community outside the home. I became aware very quickly that the two communities were in conflict and that I was thrust into the situation of having to choose the values being taught by one community against the values being taught by the other community . My inclination most of the time was to choose the values taught by the community which was the extension of the home rather than the community that I encountered at school. I also became aware that the people, the teachers and the administrators, at the school were really of the culture of the community but they were often trying...