The sad news was fresh, the morning gray. I was backed up to a bluff overlooking the Green River, sitting on my tailgate, sipping coffee, watching my dogs romp up and down the bank, swimming after mallards, flushing them, returning to the plateau, shaking off, bounding through the shin-high hayfield … pure joy. My imagination soared with their enthusiasm, evaporating to another realm, surreal.

It was cool, audible north wind blustery, cherry tree bowed, leaning toward the river, bobbing like the stroke of a careful painter. Yes, exactly, a painter, ”John the Painter,” at least that’s how he always identified himself to me on the phone. His name was John McAulay, a gentle, honest man who became part of my family for five summers, van parked out front, paint-splattered portable radio, coat-hanger antenna, tuned to oldies as he applied paint, three coats, to every inch of my dwelling and outbuildings, 76 shutters — a daunting task for a crew, never mind one man, even overwhelming if you let it consume you. But John never got discouraged, just kept a steady pace, watched the weather reports and kept at it, avoiding rain and humidity like the swine flu.

Five years later, he stood back and admired his work, done the right way, his way: conscientious to a fault, ethical to the core, a rare bird in the world of painting. John was a transient who just tried to blend in, be it in your backyard or at the local coffee shop, a quiet, even dignified presence, almost Native American in disposition; pensive, reserved. And now the man, a dying breed, is dead. His heart gave out at a Greenfield laundromat; evening, took him by surprise, quick, the way he would have scripted it.

The news arrived by phone, his cell, around 9 a.m. last Thursday. On my way out the door to run the dogs, my phone rang, caller ID reading ”Greenfield 775-2385.” The number looked familiar so I picked it up. It was John’s nephew, hesitation in his voice, delivering the news that John had passed to a member of his thin speed-dial directory. We spoke for 10 or 15 minutes, me offering my sympathies, telling him how much I liked John, reminiscing, but I guess it really didn’t hit me until I released my dogs in that spring-green hayfield and sat on the tailgate, right-wing WEEI garbage on the radio, peaceful, bucolic setting, precisely how John liked it. In fact, he often ”camped” a few miles upstream.

Maybe it was his spirit, traveling with the wind, the water, but it all started coming to me: his voice, his little gray mustache, his diffident, unassuming manner, healthy distrust of the government, society, religion. I never shared this with anyone, but I have fantasized that if ever I write a novel he would be a character, sort of an itinerant hired hand, akin to an 18th-century cabin boy who returns to the mainland and drifts from town to town, farm to farm, picking up odd jobs along the way, curling up in a hayloft for the night, saying little about his past or present, mysterious; more profound than expected once he opens the window into his past, shares his perspectives on life, the world.

There was a lot more to John than met the eye. I know. He trusted me, I him. I recommended him as a painter many times, always saying that I knew if I left $100 in change on my table and took off for the week, giving him free reign of my home, not a nickel would disappear. He had no religion, just country morals, Vermont ethics, a lonely piece of existential flotsam in the turbulent sea of life, floating, content.

Over the years, nearly 56 of them, many interesting characters have dropped in and out of my life. John the Painter was one. I often described him as an old-fashioned Vermont painter, hand-scraper and brush, a Springfield boy, good way about him. Married, two kids and a home, working the General Motors assembly line in Framingham into the 1970s, he decided it wasn’t for him and withdrew, selling out, settling-up with his wife, buying a full-sized van, and making it his mobile home, interior styled as a sea captain’s quarters. From that point on, he was the captain, did his own thing, totally; no one to tell him where to go or what to do; traveling the countryside, picking up odd jobs along the way, just enough to get by, didn’t need much to keep him happy. He called the day he sold his home and bought the van the best of his life, brought peace and freedom to his conflicted soul, broke the heavy chains trying to moor him to the mainstream. I guess it took him a while, but he finally figured out that he’d rather flee the Joneses than keep up with them. And escape he did, free as the Baltimore Oriole serenading from the river’s edge, aimless, a drifter, no itinerary, no maps, no directions, no time card or punch clock; blissful autonomy. Maybe he had it all figured out, a better way; just got sick of playing the game and softly threw his cards on the table. You have to respect a man for that; at least I do.

I will miss John’s visits, his calm manner, his wry wit, sly grin, a peculiar paranoia that the government was about to reel him into a place of no return. It was he who introduced me to rabble-rouser Alex Jones, the Illuminati and other demons from the conspiratorial fringe. I enjoyed listening to his rap, molded in Scott Nearing’s ’60s, Upton Sinclair’s ’20s. He was plenty different, counter-culture, bohemian, some would say crazy. But John was not insane, just eccentric. He was genuine as the Skitchewaug Mt. bedrock he once trudged with his Vermont-bear-hunting dad — a loner, non-conformist, always well-kempt, a speck of paint here and there; dumb like a fox, a gray fox.

I will not forget John, an interesting character who dropped out, stopped in and touched me like few others have.

He taught me something.