Walt Golec's father gave away tomatoes. Decades later, Walt would stand in a supermarket, look at the price, and tell his wife, "Grandpa used to give those away."

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That was John Golec, known around town as Farmer John. He went into the mills at 14 and ended up running Neptune Twine, a Moodus mill that never closed during the Depression. He grew more vegetables than his family could eat and carried them by the bag up to the Falls. When a neighbor with a homemade tractor plowed the Golec potato field, John tried to pay him. The neighbor refused. "He gave me a lot of vegetables."

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Walt was born in Middletown in 1928 and came home to the family homestead on Moodus-Leesville Road, then a dirt road. In 1939 his father had a house built around the corner on Davison Road. Walt's own house ended up next door. When we spoke in 2021, his daughter was living in his father's.

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The land came from his grandfather. George Golec arrived from Poland in the late 1800s, sponsored by a sister who had come first. He worked at the Red Mill in North Moodus, saved, bought property, then a dairy farm. His milk went to New Haven. His cows grazed beside where St. Bridget's church stands now, on land that is woods today but was, Walt said, "like a lawn."

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George had one rule: close the gate when you leave, so the cows don't get out. During the Depression, the town's young men held Polish picnics on his land every weekend. Some who were out of work built a bungalow of local stone, called it The Shack, and furnished it with round tables for poker and pits for dice. "If they had a couple dollars to start off with," Walt said, "it could multiply into a hundred."

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At school, a woman made soup by the panful and brought it in. Everybody had a mug. Vegetable or split pea. "It was really good."

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Then the war came, and Moodus Twine went with it, into the center of the cables that held barrage balloons over London and D-Day. "When you say making twine, it doesn't sound like much," Walt said. Afterward, the mills made string for Duncan yo-yos.

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Some days the principal canceled classes and sent everyone out on scrap drives. "Imagine a bunch of high school kids jockeying around an automobile frame."

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Walt's uncle Peter did not come home. The American Legion post carries his name, along with those of Melvin Baron and a man named Smith. "Baron was Jewish, my uncle was Catholic, and Smith was a Protestant," Walt said. "One of each."

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Moodus was the busy end of town then. Greyhound buses pulled up at Bill's Soda Shop, where a man from the resorts called out through a megaphone: "Bus number 13. Bus number 12." Saturday nights, the taverns were entertainment even for kids too young to go in. "They would be out and observe." Sundays belonged to the semi-pro ball team, which beat towns that were supposed to have good teams. "But not until they played Moodus."

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​As a teenager, Walt worked the soda fountain at the Moodus Drugstore, in a white coat. Dr. Phil Berwick, just out of the service, had his office upstairs and was sure the boy would become a pharmacist. When he didn't, the doctor was disappointed. "But I'm so happy I didn't become one," Walt said. "We stayed friends."

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He joined the National Guard with a few buddies. They were told they'd never be called. They were among the first. His anti-aircraft unit was nearly to Korea when its orders changed, and he spent about a year guarding an air base in Japan. His mother froze kielbasa from Bury's Market and mailed it to him. The Middletown Press got wind of it: "Bury's Kielbasa Hit Front in Korea." It hadn't. "Don't believe everything you read," Walt said.

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Home again, he went to the University of Hartford at night on the GI Bill, and when he "thought I had something to sell," was hired at Pratt & Whitney. He stayed 32 years. He never could carpool. "At 2:30 in the afternoon, some crisis developed."

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He was married to Josephine for 70 years. He spent more than half a century in the Lions Club, buying glasses and hearing aids for people who couldn't afford them, and served as commander of the Legion post named for his uncle.

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Asked to finish the sentence "Moodus to me is," he said, "the place I grew up. And the place that I often think of." In his Moodus he knew just about everyone. "I can go uptown today and not know anyone."

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He'd seen Japan, Alaska, Europe and Poland. A daughter lives in Paris. Did he miss anything by staying? "No," he said. "It's a good home base."

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Walt Golec died January 4, 2026. He was 97.