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02/03/2016 07:30 AMEvery car going through the driveway at Essex Elementary School gets a smile and wave; so does every school bus. Every child crossing the street gets that same wide smile along with a cheery reminder to have a good day. It’s what turns a crossing guard into a neighborhood institution and that is just what Essex Elementary School crossing guard William Clifford Westerman has become.
“He’s part of the community,” says Chris Hill, walking his 10-year-old daughter Elissa to school.
Now, it is the community’s turn to come through for Cliff. He recently was diagnosed with colon cancer. The malignant mass is too large at this point for an operation, so Cliff will go through a course of radiation to shrink the tumor before an operation to remove it. And for some of the time, he will not be able to work.
That is why Ivoryton resident Brooke Adamson has started a Go Fund Me page to help Cliff with expenses, pointing out that not only will Cliff be without a salary when he cannot work, but also that his wife Maryann may have to miss time at her job at the Valley Shore YMCA to care for him.
Brooke knows about fighting cancer. Her husband Philip Schaller is now in remission from the disease. Her own family’s experience as well as her friendship with Cliff made her determined to do something to help when she heard about his condition
“I adore Cliff; he is wonderful. I broke down in tears when I heard the news,” she says.
Brooke first met Cliff when he was picking up his own grandson, now a senior at Valley Regional. In those days, Cliff had a small business with his son Rick installing garage doors, one of which he had installed for Adamson and Schaller. Rick himself has since died of cancer. In fact, Cliff has already outlived three of his five sons.
Some six years ago, when Brooke heard the crossing guard position at Essex Elementary School had become open, she thought Cliff, now 76, would be perfect for the job. He recalls there were three applicants for the position when he went for an interview at Essex Town Hall.
“They called me back that afternoon to tell me I had the job,” he says.
In winter, Cliff wears a lined cap with ear flaps, insulated boots and pants, and three layers of T-shirts and sweat shirts under his bright yellow crossing guard jacket. He knows his constituents, not necessarily by their names but their schedules.
“The lawyer is going to come now with his two children,” he says to a visitor and sure enough Jamie Spallone, formerly a state representative and now Connecticut’s deputy secretary of the state, waited to cross Route 154 with his son and daughter.
“Only one left now,” Cliff said, “and he always comes last.”
Sure enough, a young boy came skipping along the opposite side of the street and Cliff raised his big red stop sign so he could cross. Occasionally, a driver fails to stop.
“I’d let them run over me before I let anybody run over the kids,” Cliff says.
Even after 50 years in this area, Cliff’s voice still bears the accents of his native Tennessee.
“I’m part Cherokee Indian,” he adds.
He came up here when a brother-in-law told him there were factory jobs to be had where he was working. When Cliff got here, however, the jobs had been filled and he spent many years doing agricultural work, at Tiffany Farms in Old Lyme among other places.
On his own time, Cliff collects and repairs old lawn mowers, tractors, and other landscaping equipment. Once he has the machines running, he mows his own property with them, but his goal is not to sell the reconditioned equipment. He enjoys the work just for the challenge of seeing whether he can fix the motors.
“I just picked up how to do it myself,” he says.
He also collects marbles, a hobby he admits has gotten a bit out of hand.
“I’ve got lamps full of marbles, bubble gum machines full of marbles,” he says.
While there are hand-blown glass marbles that can cost thousands of dollars, Cliff says his top price as a collector is $3 or $4. Many of his finds, both marbles and the bubble-gum machines he stores them in, come from tag sales. He also collects glass paperweights.
“I think anything glass is pretty,” he says.
Every Christmas season, he gives Brooke’s daughter Siena, who also collects marbles, a handful to keep.
Cliff learned about his colon cancer in a way that is both familiar and cautionary. He was advised to have a colonoscopy, but he didn’t want the procedure.
“My wife got after me but I am stubborn, so finally I told her if she would leave me alone I would get it done,” he says.
Doctors discovered the cancerous mass in his large intestine as a result of the colonoscopy.
Many of the people Cliff sees regularly at Essex Elementary School know of his situation.
“Parents have been saying they’re sorry and to hurry up and get well. I think the kids are a bit confused,” he says.
Cliff plans to work whenever he has the strength as his treatment progresses.
“I don’t want to leave,” he says. “I never want to leave. I love the kids too much.”
To contribute to the Go Fund Me Page for Cliff, visit www.gofundme.com/mr-westerman.