Portrait in Sound: Fredrick Lee Williams

 [Note: This recording contains some swearing… earmuffs kids!]

Sometimes picking up a box of Rice-A-Roni from the store can be a wild experience… at least it was for us back in Quinault, Washington. We’d nearly finished riding for the day when we realized we didn’t have any food to cook for dinner. After asking a few locals for suggestions, we learned there was just one place to grocery shop within 30 miles – a small mercantile perched crookedly off the side of highway 101. As we balanced our bikes precariously out front, an old man with tinted sunglasses busted through the front door. “Now what the hell are you doing with all that crap on top of your bi-cycles?”

An hour and a half later, we had moved precisely 4 feet from that front door. Seated comfortably on the wood bench outside the store’s entrance, we listened to Fred’s life stories and sage advice. We were enthralled by his wise ramblings (which almost always had a point at the end), eagerness to (quite literally) spell out his morals, and wild rants with passersby: a local truck driver, an old friend, a young native Quinault woman that worked at the mercantile, some slick, sharp-shooting cops.

I’ve posted 14 minutes of Fred Williams’ brilliance here for you to enjoy. I have left it raw on purpose. To someone that wasn’t with us in person, following his sweeping hand gestures (like the way he cups his mouth when he says COMMUNICATION) and theatrical facial expressions, it might feel confusing at times. Go with it. These moments of roadside banter are decidedly more illustrative of Fred’s character than any answers to the questions that invoked them.