Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Jim, a Real American Hero

While barehandedly hooking up a battery charger to our car this morning, my rapidly-numbing fingertips reminded me of my friend's super-human brother, Jim. Jim was not only a role model to me, but he was also a great friend to my family (shown here with my mother celebrating a New Year's Eve circa 1980). On numerous occasions, Jim helped my mother out. I recall one time our car not starting on one of the coldest days of an up-north Winter. Mom called him and asked for his assistance. I bundled up in my snowmobile suit, face mask, hat, chopper mitts, and lined boots. I went out to help. Jim, wearing only a crooked knit cap and a jean jacket clasped by only two buttons, painstakingly fumbled with bare wires for nearly an hour. Bundled as I was, I could not take it. I had to retreat to the indoors periodically for a quick warm-up. I felt bad doing it -- leaving Jim alone like that -- but, no kidding, Jim was super-human. Perhaps it was because Jim was one of the last adults living in the U.S. with polio and was used to adversity and overcoming it, but his ability to put his mind past pain will always awe me in memory. We'd go fishing on calm Summer nights when the mosquitoes were positively unbearable. I'd be one more swat away from insanity and jumping into the lake to escape their torment and I'd look over at Jim and there he'd be, intently reeling and pausing and reeling and pausing while the buggers rested on his face and hands. Like they were not even there. I honestly think it made me a little bit tougher because I'd think, "If he can do it, so can I." But only a little bit tougher, because I'd finally say, "Jim, I can't take it anymore. We have GOT to get off this lake," and he'd relent. Leaving the trophy bass to be caught another day.

This post is getting longer than I intended, but I cannot close without telling one last, epic Jim story, especially since it happened on this day, January 2nd, nearly 40 years ago.

Jim graciously let me use his four-wheeled ATV as though it were my own. Anytime I wished, I could walk to his house, hop on, startup, and take off. And I did this a lot. On a frightfully frigid January 2nd, my cousin, Andy, was visiting and we paired up on Jim's ATV. Two miles from home, we disrupted the tranquility of Porcupine Lake and spun around on its frozen, glass-like surface. After doing this for a while, we headed for the lake's outlet, which becomes the northern branch of Little River, the river that Kay lived next to only 10 miles downstream (we wouldn’t meet for years yet). As we zipped across the frozen river, I, driving, spied open water ahead. The rapids prevented the river from freezing. I slammed on both the front and rear brakes with all my might causing the ATV to pull a 180. We were now gliding backward towards the open water. I released the brakes and accelerated, but to little avail. We continued our backward skid. Then, just as we were approaching the zenith of our direction change, we heard a crack. And then another. And then crack, crack, crack and the next thing you know, we were underwater. Positively terrified, Andy and I scrambled frantically to get ourselves on solid ice. Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it), the depth was only about three-and-a-half feet, but the bad part was the bottom was muck. In trying to get out, one of my boots got sucked off my feet and stayed submerged at the bottom. I can’t remember, but I think this happened to Andy too. Anyway, we were finally able to get ourselves on solid ice and, even though panic was setting in, we commanded ourselves: do not stop moving and progress as quickly as possible to the ice fishermen on the other side of the lake and ask for help. And that we did. We hastily sloshed our soaked-to-the-bone selves to the first fisherman we could find. I stuttered, “Sir, can you please help us? Our 4-wheeler went through the ice. We are freezing and we need your help. Can you please give us a ride to my mother’s?” He replied by querying where was my mother’s, and I replied by telling him, “Goatsville Tavern.” To my disbelief, he said, “I’ll give you a ride, but only if you agree that your mother gives me a 12-pack of beer.” Deal! I said, in a complete non-position to negotiate. (When my mom found this out later she wanted to strangle him.)

Finally warmed and in dry clothes, my attention turned to the fear of letting Jim know what I did to his ATV. It remained submerged, wheels up, in the frozen river. There was no beating around the bush: I had to tell Jim exactly what happened and accept the consequences.

So what did Jim do? He laughed boisterously. “Oh you crazy kid, you’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself! Don’t worry about the ATV. We’ll get it out and I’ll take it to my shop and dry it out.”

Whew. You have got to be kidding me. What a guy. I thought he was going to string me up like he would a slain buck, but he did exactly the opposite.

Every day I think of him. He was as an important of an influence on young me as nearly anybody else.

RIP, Jim. And thanks for not sending me to heaven first the day I put your ATV through the ice.

P.S. - A shout-out and thank you, too, to my Uncle Lynn for helping and directing us how to get that ATV out of the ice!

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