Remembering Jim

I just got word tonight that a former classmate and former Aqualand employee has passed away unexpectedly. Jim was always so full of life. There were about six or seven of us, all teens, all classmates who worked together at Aqualand during my high school years. But it was the time that Jeff, Jerry, Jim and I worked out on the grounds crew together that really stands out to me. Those boys had such a way of making hard work fun. In the midst of it all there was rough housing, practical joking and my personal favorite-the dare. We would get 50 gallon barrels of waste cookies from the "Rippin Good" Cookie factory near my great uncle's farm in Ripon. When the cookie frosting machines gummed up they scraped the whole works into barrels for us and we then used them to coax the bigger carnivores into their dens so we could deep clean their pens. On a minor dare, one of the boys took a taste of the scrap and soon we were all hooked. The sealed barrels kept the "gunk" from getting stale and it was yummy, let me tell you. I will never forget my first fist full of frosted animal cookie gunk. To this day, Rippin Good frosted animal cookies are my ultimate comfort food, reminding me of simple times, simple joys and the uncomplicated friendship of youth. Jim was the most daring of us all. Only Jim tasted just about any of the "foods" we fed the animals- Jerry and Jeff seemed to have a much more delicate gag reflex. But I will never forget the greatest dare flung out one hot summer day by one of the older guys who worked with us teens and dared us all to walk upright across the swinging bridge that connected two towers. It was the "Goat Bridge" and the sure footed goats would trip trap across to get a fist full of cracked corn that visitors to the zoo would place into the bucket which was tied to a rope pulley. The goat would cross and then in an act of pure show-off goatsman-ship the goat would put his lips around the rope and pull the bucket up to get the corn. I don't remember the prize attached to the dare, but it was not insignificant because our elder didn't think any of us would do it. (I had crawled across on all fours to clean the tower, but that was a once or twice a summer event, and it was always a slow go as the bridge was high over a murky,shallow barnyard pond- not anything one would want to take a dip in and possibly too shallow to break a fall from the heights). Jim jumped up from the picnic table where we were all on one of my Dad's famous "coffee breaks" and we all proceeded to follow him to the barnyard. Jim climbed the first tower- a series of switch-back ramps that goats used to get to the bridge. Without hesitation, he stepped out onto the bridge and proceeded to run, yes run, all the way across and all the way back. With the grace of a born athlete he climbed back down the ramps, jumped the goat pen fence and held out his hand for the prize. Jim was agile, athletic, sweet hearted and had the longest curly eyelashes I have ever seen. His smile was impish and you could never stay mad at him, no matter how much he frustrated you. It has been years since I have seen Jim, but upon learning of the loss of him earlier tonight, I felt the sadness of a shared childhood remembered. It seems the friends of our youth stay forever young, and larger- more important in their impact on our lives in a different way than the friends we have met since becoming adults. I did not know Jim's adult life, but I know he was loved and I know that he will always be large in my memory. God Bless you Jim, I imagine you running, jumping and smiling that charmer smile in eternity tonight.