Meet Your Neighbor
John Becker
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
The motto "Waste not, want not" perfectly describes the way John Becker lives his life. Not only did the retired carpenter build his own house with a fully equipped attached workshop, he built nearly every piece of furniture in the house from scrap wood he collected from dumpsters and uses his refuse from that to heat his home and workshop.

"I'm really surprised at what gets thrown out these days," he said, surrounded by every tool imaginable.

Becker, who has lived on Nantucket for 53 years, was born and raised on City Island, which is connected to New York City by a bridge and is comprised mostly of boatyards. He was 17 years old when he left home.

"That was when I decided it was time to get away from my parents because they were driving me crazy, so I went into the Merchant Marines and the Navy."

Becker had been to Nantucket as a youth when he was a member of the Sea Scouts. He liked it here then, and had other chances to visit through his friendship with Navy crewmate and native islander Bill Reis. When Becker was discharged from the Navy he moved to the island, settled down and had a family of three sons and two daughters. For 20 years he worked for builder Joe Senecal. During those two decades the men replaced the wooden gear teeth in the Old Mill every year as well as worked on homes all across the island. Becker said he most enjoyed working on older houses.

"It's more of a challenge," he said. "You have to replace things they did years ago. We have modern machinery and you wonder how they did it by hand."

When Becker turned 65 he "semiretired," and then called it quits at the age of 70. But he did not really retire other than from punching a clock for somebody else each day. When he is not gardening, which he loves to do using seeds from his previous year's plants he starts in his home greenhouse, he is in his impressive workshop mornings and afternoons creating all manner of objects from the amazing collection of discarded mahogany and other fine wood he rescues from the trash. And not one item is for sale. Everything Becker crafts is intended as a gift.

"You name it, I make it," he said, displaying wooden-based lamps, beautiful bowls, children's ride-on toys, tables, lawn furniture, whirligigs and weathervanes, clocks and a host of other handsome products any store would be proud to carry.

"If I would start to sell things it would mean I was back to work again and it would take the pleasure out of it," he explained. "At 76 I do what I please. You've got to have something to make you want to keep going."

Asked if he would like to travel if he had more spare time, Becker said he saw plenty of other locations when he was in the service and has more than enough to do in his yard and workshop to keep him occupied and satisfied.

"I'm content with Nantucket. I'm content to stay

here now." I