Billy Costello Dies at 61

by James Panero

Billy Costello was hit by an oncoming motorist in Norwich this past Friday and passed away Saturday at DHMC. He was 61 years old. It’s now Tuesday evening as I write this. I heard about his death just a few hours ago, from a small obituary I found in the Monday Valley News, and I am shocked by the loss of this funny and loving man.

As I spread the word of his passing, I realize he will be missed by many, many people. Billy, it seems, managed to touch all types— Dartmouth students, local residents, the inn and shop-keepers of Hanover.

If you didn’t know his name you at least knew who he was. To many of us he was simply Foodstop Billy. He stood around Foodstop most every night and welcomed everyone who came in the door. “How awwwe ya?” he’d ask. “Ya go to Daawtmouth? It’s hawd to make a living these days.”

Billy read three or four newspapers a day, I imagine. He became a sort of Herald of Hanover to many an insomniac student, and he never missed a punchline. “Say, how about that OJ trial?” he might ask you in the juice aisle. “I tell ya, I don’t drink O.J. anymore. That stuff’l kill ya.”

But Billy was more than Hanover’s humorist. I was lucky to develop a friendship with him over the last few years. Billy worked odd jobs for a living. He cleaned a number of Hanover offices and businesses a few times a week for $10 to $20 dollars each, including the offices of this newspaper. That’s how we first met, about four years ago. He’d often sit and talk with me after he cleaned, and over time I grew to know him.

I learned that he moved jobs often. In the past few years he was laid off from Little Ceasars, EBAs, and one of the local Chinese restaurants. About two years ago he landed a job at Maximum Mattress in West Leb as the “Mattress Man,” and I think the pay was good enough to keep him out of debt. Anyone who drove by that mattress store knew how hard Billy worked. Day-in, day-out he wore a twin-size mattress over his body and jumped up-and-down as cars drove though the K-Mart parking lot. He joked that one more year at the company and he could keep the mattress.

Billy’s income was just about enough to pay his monthly expenses. Though he never drank or used drugs, he split his rent with some recovering junkies in a half-way house to put a roof over his head. His share was $90 a month, which as I learned was not enough to pay for the apartment’s kitchen. So Billy ate out, subsisting on muffins at Foodstop or the occasional breakfast at Lou’s.

I went to Billy’s funeral at the Knight Funeral Home in White River Junction earlier this evening. Five friends came with me, students like myself. The room was filled with all ages and all walks of life. Billy’s cremated ashes were decked in bouquets from The Hanover Inn, Dan and Whit’s, Maximum Mattress, and from a number of friends and relatives.

I once wondered why Billy never resented the Dartmouth students who passed him by every day. He never traveled more than a hundred miles from White River Junction in his life. One day last year he stopped me on Main Street. “Ah Jimmy,” he called out. “All ya Daawtmouth kids awe rich. They always told us ya have to be rich to go to Daawtmouth. Youwre all set. And I just got laid off from another job. It’s hawd to make a living... Oh well, Jimmy, I’ll see ya.” He walked off a sad man. A moment later, though, he was wide-eyed and smiling again, greeting someone else down the road.