The late Robert J. “Bobby” Fossett was the chairman of the Bristol Board of Selectmen when I started with The Lincoln County News in 1999. At that time the board was made up of Fossett, Dwayne Boynton and Craig Elliott. Between the three of them, it seemed they knew everything about their town.
Elliott and Boynton are both good men and were very capable selectmen. Fossett, however, was the engine that moved that particular board along. He handled the bulk of the day-to-day business, served as the town spokesman and directed the board’s attention.
In my time covering Bristol, specifically in the days before the town hired their first full-time administrator, board meetings were a seriously informal affair.
The selectmen would come in on Thursday nights and take on the stack of paperwork piled high on their one desk. In that stack there would be warrants, notes, phone messages, legal briefs, permits to be signed off on, unopened mail and whatever else that required the board’s attention.
Unless there was a pressing issue, whatever was in that pile that week, and in the order they came to it, constituted the agenda; which could be immediately amended on the spot the second someone walked through the door with an issue for the board.
Covering that board, some nights you would get a story and some nights you wouldn’t. Sometimes a board meeting was a lot like watching a tired workingman open the mail. Sometimes those meetings, light on content and long on conversation, proved to be the most valuable in the long run.
I grew to like Bob a great deal, and as I watched him work, I came to respect him a great deal more. I realize there are those whose opinion may differ from my own and I can understand that; nobody makes everybody happy.
In my experience, Fossett was a man of his word. If you played straight with him, he would play straight with you. I value that and I think he did, too. He may pull your leg until your patience wore out, but it was all in good fun. When it was time to do business, he was all business.
Now, if you paid any attention at all, it wouldn’t take long to see through the country bumpkin, good ol’ boy part Bob liked to play. It was just an act. It was a role that fit him like a glove, but Bob Fossett was nobody’s fool. Why he seemed most comfortable letting on like he had never left the farm before in his life, I’ll never know, but he was as sharp as they come.
I think that’s why I admired him so much. He didn’t need to impress; he knew who he was.
During a good portion of Bob’s nine years as a selectman, Bristol was embroiled in a protracted legal battle regarding its method of property tax assessment. The courts ultimately bore Bristol out, but not before tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees were accrued.
For Fossett and the lead plaintiff, Anthony Capodilupo, at times the lawsuit seemed as much a personal struggle between the two of them as a legal protest. Capodilupo, a seasonal resident with money, and Fossett, a local boy born and raised, were simply from two different worlds.
I think the heart of Bob’s success, the reason why people packed the Harrington Meeting House for his funeral service Monday, was that he really, genuinely enjoyed people.
In that office on Thursday nights, I personally watched him pick up a phone to tend to the board’s business. I particularly remember the care he took returning one phone call to an elderly constituent, frightened by an assessment issue. On that occasion, Bob was a masterful combination of kindness, reassurance and authority.
I only found out he was a veteran one night because he let it slip that he didn’t care much for Jane Fonda, largely because he was dodging bullets while crawling through the muck and mire of Vietnam while she was cavorting with the enemy. He didn’t belabor the point, but his bitterness was evident more than 30 years after the fact.
Despite my repeated requests, Bob declined to be interviewed about his service for one of our Memorial Day stories. The last time I asked him, he looked me in the eye and said something like, “I don’t know, Sherwood… see…”
There were more words coming but he couldn’t find them and I changed the subject so he didn’t have to.
As much as Bob enjoyed people, he really enjoyed his town. Any selectman can be colloquially called a town father, but Bob Fossett really was. He also served on the planning board, Board of Appeals and budget committee for years. He was a firefighter and a First Responder.
During Olde Bristol Days, Fossett emceed the Merritt Brackett Lobster Boat Races and for more than one person, the races will never be the same without his Downeast flavored gravelly garble serving as the soundtrack for the event.
In the wake of his passing, some people have commented on Fossett the family man; his 44-year marriage to Valerie; how much he loved having his family around; how proud he was of his grandchildren. He was a model grandfather, the kind you would hope to have. He was a regular fixture at any sporting event involving one of his grandchildren.
I will always remember Bob fondly for authoring one of my all time favorite town meeting moments. It’s the moment I think of when I think of what a Lincoln County Annual Town Meeting should be.
On this occasion, after residents had worked their way through most of the warrant, one of the last articles involved a relatively small increase dealing with the care and upkeep of the town’s cemeteries.
During the extended debate that followed, someone asked which particular cemetery this increase was for and Bob, fielding the question, couldn’t remember the actual name. “You know where…” he said. “It’s a … up by…uh, you know that road… you know, uh…”
Finally, frustrated, he broke it down.
“You know where Junior Benner lives?” he asked, to which most of the heads in the room nodded. “Well, it’s across from Junior Benner’s place.”
At that point, there seemed to be a collective “Oh, yeah, that one does need work,” and the voters promptly waved the article through without further debate.
Bob Fossett. You couldn’t have done it any better.
