The Tinkerer
The Tinkerer smiled, his eyes alight,
Tides twist left, then spin right!
A journey’s worth? Oh, don’t you know?
It’s in the tales that ebb and flow”
Characters rarely come from nowhere. More often, they arrive from real life, lightly fictionalized, names changed, and edges softened or sharpened. The Tinkerer is one such character. He is inspired by Bill Brine, a man who never met an ordinary day he couldn’t animate.
If my father, the Judge, was the straight man. Tightly wound and deeply committed to doing things properly, Bill Brine was his perfect foil. My father understood this instinctively. Every family needs balance, and ours required a steady infusion of irreverence. Bill supplied it generously. Where my parents brought order, Bill brought possibility. Between them, I learned that a full life needs both judgment and joy.
Bill was a tinkerer in the truest sense. He cooked up ideas with enthusiasm. Non-wooden lacrosse sticks, long before anyone thought that mattered. Soccer, in the 1960s, was surely about to become hot. Circus tents as energy-efficient summer homes on an island off another island. He presented each idea with such conviction that you found yourself wondering whether the rest of the world was simply late to the party.
But Bill didn’t just invent ideas. He had an instinct for folding others into his orbit and making them feel instantly included. When I brought my stepsons to the island for the first time, Bill was the very first call I made. He was the designated adventure maker, the one who could turn unfamiliar territory into instant belonging. My husband understood this too. When it came time to ask for my hand in marriage, he went to Bill before he went to my own father. Part practice, part strategy, and not at all misguided.
No great tinkerer works alone. Bill’s brilliance was matched by his wife Ann, his steady sidekick, co-conspirator, and grounding force. Together, they built a life that was generous in every sense of the word. Through their children, my own childhood took shape: my first island friend, my favorite babysitter, my sailing instructor, and my “other” brother. They were proof that family can be both inherited and chosen, and that the best ones make room at the table.
Bill would take a plane, train or a boat anywhere an adventure called, and often did. He once convinced a troupe of families that spending a day digging through an ancient dump in search of antique bottles was clever thrifting, not a recipe for full body poison ivy. He chased beaches in search of visiting celebrities with the confidence of someone who assumed access was merely a matter of timing. And without fail, he was first in line for free ice cream on Labor Day, treating it like a civic duty.
Like both of my parents, Bill died on a full moon. He followed my father by three months. Bill had struggled to let go for more than a year, bound to a wheelchair, without a voice. That last Labor Day, at the Beach Club, he sat strapped in, smiling as we sang funny songs from childhood while he and my father ate their final free ice cream. Two old friends, two full moons ahead of them, one last tradition honored with humor intact.
In fiction, the Tinkerer reminds Princess Briel that journeys matter less for where they end than for what they collect along the way. In real life, Bill lived that truth effortlessly. He showed me that curiosity is a responsibility, not a hobby, and that imagination ages well if you let it. He made life bigger, lighter, and more interesting simply by how he moved through it.
It has been said, correctly, about Bill Brine, that everyone needs a Bill Brine in their life. And there you have it. The story of the Tinkerer.
