In Memoriam

Yesterday I found out that me best friend James Case's father passed away on Wednesday, August 1. While it was a shock in some ways, it wasn't in others, he was considerably older than my parents (83 years old in fact) and not in the best of health since his bypass.

So I thought I would take some time to share some of my thoughts and memories of J.L., as we called him.

Mr. Case was a talker, he loved to talk and tell stories, and could talk all day and all night if you let him. In fact when James got married one of my principal roles was to sit and listen to him talk, keeping him occupied while other people were getting things done. Which I really enjoyed, J.L. lived a very long and full life.

One of the earliest memories I have was when I left a toy plastic shield at James house, and Mr. Case, thinking it was a toy for demonstrating how strong you were snapped it by flexing his arm with it on.

Like a lot of people who lived through the depression, and his memories of that time were very strong, he was both a pack rat and always made sure the pantry was full of food. As a kid I always enjoyed going to the Case house because there was always plenty of kid friendly food around.

Mr. Case was a builder and developer, and this was demonstrated at their house by his building nearly full houses as play houses for each of the kids; these were framed out, roofed, 2 story structures. Which looking back was a really astounding feat, I cannot imagine anyone I know doing something like that for their kids even if they had the land.

Although I know it happened, I can never remember Mr. Case getting mad or yelling at the kids, he was a very pleasant host for kids. As a habitual early riser, even as a kid, sometimes I would get up and have breakfast with him when I spent the night, and he was always fun to listen to. And he was really quite permissive, (which probably resulted in us doing things we shouldn't have) one of my other early memories was when I was in grade school and the television show Roots was on, and while Mrs. Case didn't want us to watch it he let us, realizing that maybe we might learn something, and regardless it wouldn't be more harmful than watching 'Cowboys and Indians'.

So for all those wonderful memories I raise a figurative toast to J.L. Case, Rest In Peace