Apr
22
2011
My sweet friend Jim would probably kill me if he knew I was using his middle name here, but I know several people named Jim Taylor, so it always helped me to find him in my address book when I could search by his full name.
Today I received very sad news about Jim. A mutual friend informed me that his body was found in his apartment in Brooklyn.
Jim was very successful for many years as a woman’s clothes designer. He loved animals and had a beautiful penthouse in Queens for many years, as well as a home on Fire Island for a while. He was a true Midwestern boy whose dreams came true when he moved to the City of New York. I was glad to be his friend both when he was successful and then for many years when he had some medical setbacks, including some bad seizures. As a result, he became quite destitute, but still stayed in the adopted city he loved so much, and it was during those tough times that I remember having the most laughs and the most fun while hanging out with him, including at many of the parties that I had in Brooklyn. He loved making friends and was great with staying in touch with me, even when I moved back to California. He told me many times that he would have loved to visit, and I was beckoning him to do it, so he could at least get away from the city for a while, during the tougher times he had.
I’m so glad I told Jim I loved him on more than one occasion, even when he drove me a little crazy.
The more I think about it, the more I realize my Mom is right that someone with this kind of medical history, really should not be living alone, because if he had a seizure, it is very likely that he could have survived.
Jim’s mother apparently died three years ago, which I did not know until this week, and his father, from whom he was apparently estranged, is not willing to pay for his cremation, which means that Jim might end up in the notorious New York city grave for John Doe’s known as Potter’s Field. I hope this won’t be the case. He deserved better.
Bobby and I decided to take the dog and drive it, instead of fly, despite the high gas prices these days, and we had a great time seeing friends and family along the way. My best friend from law school and his partner hosted us in Seattle. Their two cats were kind enough not to eat Monte, and they all pretty much started getting along by the time we left.
I saw my Aunt Sharren. She’s the sweetest thing, but she wouldn’t let me take her picture! We stayed overnight at her place and did some major catching up through breakfast the next day. I hadn’t seen her since I was probably about five years old! Fortunately we chat regularly online. Our two little dogs got along surprisingly well.
The road trip back was the slow one, and it included lots of beaches, redwoods, gorges, sand dunes and lighthouses. Besides spending several days in Seattle, we made stops in Portland, Astoria, Canon Beach, Florence, Port Orford, Eureka, Orick, Fort Bragg, Mendocino, Guerneville and countless other unmarked places on Highways 101 and 1, mostly.
I split up the galleries to consist of one with people and dogs and one that consists of views and vistas.
Unfortunately it looks like the video part of my expensive Nikon 5100 is going south, as did my photography portion of the camera several months ago. I’ll see if there is a way to increase the contrast and decrease the flushed areas of sand and sky that seem to blur a lot of the details in some of the videos.
