This week, I want to remember a long-time, active community member who died in September at age 89. Weston Cate, Jr. he was known as formally; people just called him Wes. Wes Cate embodied many of the ideals I see as ways to prepare ourselves and our communities for energy scarcity: he was heavily engaged in the affairs of his town, he managed extensive gardens and other food enterprises at Fox Run Farm in East Montpelier, Vermont and he reported on and thought critically about the world around him. According to the obituary published in the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, "over the years [Wes Cate] served as town moderator in Hartford; school board member in Montpelier; and town moderator, planning commission member, and selectman in East Montpelier, among other positions. He was a leader in many organizations, including the Calais Historical Society, the Green Mountain Folklore Society, the Community of Vermont Elders, and the Vermont Retired Teachers Association. He was a frequent public speaker and contributed many op-ed columns and letters to the editor for local newspapers, often offering wry reflections on Vermont history and what it means to live in Vermont." I was pleased to count Wes among the listeners to my radio shows. Even in the last years of his life, Wes was grappling with the local implications of global trends, as I try to do in this weekly commentary. His eyesight deteriorated to the point where he couldn't read for himself, and I stopped in on occasion to read to him. One time he spread out five books that he was reading for me to choose from, including Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America. Growing food, putting it by, these are things that came naturally to Wes Cate, and his wife Jean, who died herself just a few years ago. Their son Paul brought his parents' canning records to a recent meeting of the East Montpelier Historical Society, and they stretched back to the 1950s. In the Transition Town movement, we talk about re-skilling, learning the skills that our parents or grandparents knew, that helped them live good lives while using significantly less oil. Some skills, like canning or gardening, require a fair amount of practice to become proficient at. Other skills are really just an attitude. That attitude is reflected in what I'll call the parable of the wrapping paper, and which Wes Cate called Letter from the Country Number 1 when he submitted it to the Times Argus in 1983. Here's his grandson Austin reading it at the memorial service --and adding a comment of his own. … That was Austin Cate, reading from his grandfather Wes Cate's 1983 Letter from the Country Number 1, to the Times Argus. Wes Cate died in September at age 89. I’m Carl Etnier, and that’s this week’s Peak Oil Check-In.