In my house in Newcastle, when you walk in the front door, in the hutch across the room, instantly visible from the doorway if you know what you’re looking for, is a beautiful, one of a kind, ceramic serving dish crafted by the late John S. Okie.
I look at that piece every day when I come home, and everyday I do, I think about John S.Okie.
Mirroring the state and national news, the depressing rise in unemployment, the endless pleas for vital support by local community service organizations, the long awaited trial of John A. Okie, which opened in Kennebec County on Monday, strangely seems to fit the somber mood of this holiday season.
Like few other events of recent times, the murder of John S. Okie in Newcastle last year was a Mike Tyson punch in the gut for this community. Playing the game six degrees of separation, it seems almost everybody knew, was connected to, or dealt with John S. Okie in some fashion, whether it is those of us who patronized Sheepscot Pottery where he plied his craft, or those of us who went to school with his son at the Great Salt Bay school in Damariscotta.
Here in Lincoln County, we often pride ourselves on our sense of community and the death of John S. Okie felt very much like the untimely loss of a family member.
While we cannot begin to compare our feelings to those of Karen Okie who has lost husband and a son in this tragedy, the death of John S. Okie has left a void in our community that will remain unfilled.
