Grant Morrison

Hey, where is Gamal?

Jimmie was my best friend growing up.  He was very creative and a bit of a dreamer and at some point I went down a different path in life and we became seperated.  I never realized how much he impacted me until he was gone.

I have so many memories of Jimmie and his family since they lived across the street from me.  My first encounter with him was probably centered around Star Wars or Batman.  We used to play with all his Star Wars figures and toys when it was rainy outside.  When it was sunny out, we were the caped crusaders!  I was Batman and he was Robin.  Our parents made capes for us (his was itchey!) and we rode around on our bikes(right next to each other) and pretended we were in the Batmobile.

We fought imaginary villains and dreamed of someday meeting catwoman (Julie Newmar).

When we were not saving Gotham/Danbury, we were throwing Chinese Stars at the backside of the garage (which we got in big trouble for) or hiding in the crawl space and looking at Adult Magazines.  We would explore the stream behind the Peck's house used to drink from it and never get sick.  We would just wait for the paint or gasoline or whatever the neighbors dumped in it to pass and it was all good!

Jimmie and I had Huffy Bikes and we would ride them in the trails behind St Gregory's church while all the catholic kids would go to "religion" class.  We laughed at them!  How silly that you had to go to class after you got out of school and learn about church!  Ridiculous....  You should be outside shooting hoops or playing ball, not getting dressed up in a blue shirt and pants to learn more stuff.

When the weather was bad we would race our Hot Wheels cars on orange tracks and see who could beat who. At some point Jimmie got a commodore 64 computer!  This was a big deal and he learned how to run programs on it and save things to a tape deck; it was way cool.

My best memory was during the last week of school. We decided to walk to DHS for the last 3 days.  It was something we should have done during the early part of our senior year.  It took no time at all even though we live about 3 miles away. We talked and walked and bought a snack at a convenience store on the way and it was great!

I was shocked to learn that Jimmie had died.  He was a father, a son and a for me; a great friend and I will miss him.