Robert "Rusty" Blossom

Robert "Rusty" Blossom, of Conway, MA, died on March 9th, at the age of 80, beating by a decade the age at which he declared continued human existence "in bad taste." Doctors attributed the cause of death to pneumonia, but a number of Rusty's friends had a different theory: Trump-related existential exhaustion.

He is survived by his longtime companion, Susan Lenoe, of Andover, MA; his two brothers, Dwight, of Hinsdale, NH, and Charles, of Concord, NH; and 26 nieces and nephews. His wife of 30 years, Margaret (Dunn) Blossom, predeceased him.

Rusty was a resident of Conway for exactly half a century and, along with his wife, personally took credit after moving there for tipping their town blue -- by two votes, in favor of George McGovern, in the 1972 presidential election.

Called Rusty (never Bob) from birth, either due to his red hair or in a prophetic nod to his future politics, he grew up in Hinsdale, NH. Rusty was a 1961 graduate of Keene State College, where he majored in English and theater. In 1966 he received a master's degree in American Studies from Yale, where he specialized in African American history and literature. Rusty later taught a course at UMass-Amherst while working toward a (never completed) doctorate in Education.

Rusty was culturally and politically engaged all his life. He directed and acted in more than two dozen plays in community theaters in Deerfield and Greenfield. In recent years he became an enthusiastic benefactor and board member of the New England Youth Theatre, of Brattleboro.

In addition, Rusty volunteered (and sometimes got arrested) on behalf of a number of causes that reflected his dedication to social justice, including various anti-nuke initiatives and Pioneer Valley's first support organization for people living with HIV; Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, of Greenfield; and the Franklin County jail, where he co-facilitated a sobriety program for inmates.

With Rusty's death go the answers to innumerable grammatical mysteries. He was assumed by many to be the last person alive who knew the difference between "lie" and "lay" or who could explain what, exactly, the subjunctive mood is.

He taught English for 38 years, first at Frontier Regional, in Deerfield, and later at Franklin County Tech, in Turners Falls. In between, in the 1970s, Rusty worked as a reporter and editor at the Amherst Record, which he proudly helped to unionize, equally proudly losing his job in the process.

As generations of former students would often tell him, he inspired in many a love of literature; respect for his higher power, Shakespeare; and -- despite terrorizing his classes with opera arias, the soundtracks to his creative-writing sessions -- an appreciation for classical music.

Rusty was an accomplished painter, an epic raconteur and dinner party host, a voracious reader whose house friends swore tilted from the weight of untold thousands of volumes, and an avid gardener. His voluptuous flowerbeds were featured on garden tours and served as the setting for numerous weddings: straight, gay, and who-knows-what, legal or not. Many summers, he participated in the Teaching American History Institute program at the Deerfield Teachers' Center, where he taught seminars on history and pedagogy to elementary and high school teachers.

Donations in Rusty Blossom's memory can be made to Meals on Wheels/LifePath or Pioneer Valley Hospice and Palliative Care, both of Greenfield. At Rusty's request, there will be no memorial service. A private celebration of his life will take place at a later date.