My wife and I were shocked to learn of the sudden death yesterday of our good and revered friend, Frank Oakes, who was an inspiration to us and to countless others. During our days in Florida, Frank’s organic supermarket and café, appropriately named Food and Thought, was always an oasis of sanity in an increasingly mad world. We went there almost every week, not merely for the finest organic produce and the best café lattes in town, but for the uplifting and edifying conversations with Frank. A committed Christian and a man who practised the subsidiarist and distributist creed that he preached, he was, for us and for many, a model of how to prosper ethically and economically in the face of the intrusive Federal Government and its diet dictocrats in the Food and Drug Administration.
 
Beginning with a small produce stand at the side of the highway in Frot Myers, Frank bought himself some land and began to farm organically. In 2004 he opened Food and Thought, where he sold his own organic produce and that of other organic producers. He also sold raw milk, a staple of the Pearce family diet, in defiance of the food fascism of Florida law, which made the selling of raw milk illegal for human consumption. Frank stuck labels stating “for pet consumption only” on the bottles.
 
Food and Thought sold a range of books, including all of my own books, but especially, and appropriately enough, Small is Still Beautiful. The store also had a bulk subscription to the St. Austin Review.
 
Although Frank never converted to Catholicism, he was very friendly to the Church and attended a talk that I gave on my conversion to the local Faith and Ale group. Last year, two of his employees were received into the Church, much to our delight. 
 
Food and Thought was next door to Starbucks and I delighted in the fact that the small business sold better coffee and much better food than its giant neighbour. I also rejoiced in the evident fact that it attracted far more customers. In the end, Starbucks left and Frank expanded Food and Thought into the property vacated by the departing giant. This symbolic victory holds out hope for the future.
 
What the US economy needs is an army of men of the calibre of Frank Oakes. Frank is one in a million but we can hope and pray for a million people like Frank Oakes.              
 
Here’s the link to a story about Frank in yesterday’s Naples Daily News: