From Jim’s great friend Wayne:
Brother Conchie
I first met Jim in Nelson circa 1972. Jim was working at the plywood plant, and I was an apprentice plumber. We spent many winter days on the slopes at Whitewater while reserving the odd day to do laundry and clean up.
We shared friends, skiing, evenings in the pub and a passion for labour activism.
We were both delegates to the West Kootenay Labour Council. As such, we gained a great appreciation for each other’s commitment to working people and social justice. Jim and I shared these challenges throughout our lives whether together or when our paths diverged.
We shared a strong sense of community and friends. Jim joined many other of our friends to help build the house at South Slocan for my partner Dodie and me. There were days of hard work and evenings spent feasting and partying. That was what community meant.
Many evenings were spent at the Vallican Whole dancing the night away to the music of Brain Damage and Pied Pumpkin.
It was about this time that Jim had t-shirts made for us. As expected, they caused quite a row at our Labour Council when we wore them. They were fashioned on the International Woodworkers of America logo. Ours proudly identified us as members of the International Weedworkers of the World incorporating our political inclinations to the IWW.
Jim loved the seas. Aside from his own wanderings around the world, he owned a very small sailboat. Well, it was more a punt with a sail than an actual sailboat. Jim lived out at Four Mile on the beach north of Nelson. One day, a very nice wind came up and Jim decided to put the sail up and enjoy the beautiful day.
It wasn’t until quite late that evening that I received a call from Jim. While out sailing, he had shifted the sail to tack with the wind and while stepping over the handle, he ended up with a serious tear in his scrotum. He managed to get back to the beach, wrapped his scrotum with a towel to control the bleeding and sped off to his doctor. She was very impressed! He somewhat embarrassed!
I soon moved up to Vallican in the Slocan Valley to live with my new love, Dianne. Jim had drifted off back to the coast. Our paths diverged until Jim showed up at the Vancouver Folk Festival where he met Lynne. The next thing, he ended up in Seattle smitten with his new love.
Dianne and I took our four kids back to Ontario in 1992 to visit with Dianne’s parents and her high-school friends. On the way we met up with Jim, Lynne, Alex, and Brook who were visiting her parents at a lake near Minneapolis.
We spent many weekends visiting Jim, Lynne, and the kids in Seattle. Many of those visits were spent at Bumbershoot Festivals. I’ll never forget Jim and I going to a Dylan concert just after Bush sent the troops into Iraq. Dylan opened with “Masters of War”!
Jim and I loved to spend time at the Jefferson Golf Course hacking our way around. I marveled at his grandfathers putter even though Jim had a difficult time making it work. Jim’s must have been quite a smart student, but his math must have suffered. He had a somewhat difficult time adding up golf strokes and counting lost balls. We would also join up occasionally with Lee Loftus and Tom Sigurdson at the Shuksan Golf Course just over the border from Surrey.
Jim and Lynne then moved from Seattle to Toronto to be near Brook and Alex after they flew the nest. I was able to drop in on them in Toronto as I passed through on business. Jim and I would wander the streets stopping at his favorite coffee shops and the occasional pub if he and Lynne were not off to another demonstration or picket line.
After a few years in Toronto, Jim decided that he wanted to return to Vancouver where he was born. I was able to help them find a co-op housing unit in South Vancouver on the Fraser. They loved their apartment on the river, and Dianne and I would spend evenings with them savouring Jim’s famous chowder with his sourdough bread and then watching a movie.
Although they loved their place on the Fraser river, they soon missed Brook and Alex and decided to move back to Toronto to be closer to them. Jim had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and recognized that there would be difficult times ahead. Jim and Lynne researched MAID and made an application.
Jim’s long-term memory never failed. Those of us who spent a lot of time with Jim can probably tell the same tales having heard them quite often. He was a storyteller!
His struggle with dementia and episodes of delirium proved a great challenge for both Jim and Lynne. I was so fortunate to have been able to visit them a few times this fall. We celebrated the fifty years we spent on this earth together.
Jim was truly the brother I never had. He was a wonderful friend, often cantankerous, possessing a great sense of humour and keen mind. Together, we loved music, political activism, history, and life with our partners watching our children grow into the wonderful adults they have become.
A Life Well Lived!
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