Jimmy on NPR

Jimmy's honorable mention at a San Jose City Council meeting can be heard at the beginning of this broadcast.

If the link above doesn't take you to the URL, copy and paste this into your browser window:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14962721

Hooray for Yimmeh!

Jimmy would probably respond to the subsequent coverage of cutting the meeting length with a joke not fit for general audiences.

I Loved a Man with Uniforms

I wore one of Jimmy's uniforms yesterday. That gave me a fantastic excuse to tell everyone all about Jimmy.

Unfortunately, I can't repeat any of those conversations here, even though everything I said was loving. I have many beautiful memories of Jimmy that simply don't belong on a blog.

Lessons Learned

Jimmy loved to retell the story of his father aiming a leafblower at him on the couch, startling the -- how old was Jimmy -- little boy awake from a nap.

"You got time to lean, you got time to clean!"

Dad was joking but he meant that there was no time for sleeping when there were chores to be done.

That lesson and work ethic stayed deeply ingrained in Jimmy.

If anything, Jimmy's problem was putting everyone else's chores ahead of his own needs, to the point of spreading himself too thin.

Navy Note

Jimmy brought his skateboard along with him on his Navy ship, but didn't get enough opportunities to use it. One of the only times he did so, he got reprimanded.

This was in Kuwait, and the officer who'd spotted him skating along the dock declared that doing so was disrespectful, contradicting the image that the U.S. military wants to convey in aiding a foreign nation. But come on, what other options did he have for diversion -- something he would have really needed given all the sadness of his assignment over there.

He Loved That Motorcycle

I feel glad that Jimmy not only left this world painlessly but that he got to spend his last moments doing one of his favorite things: motorcycling.

Several of us, including Jimmy's Uncle Johnny, recognized that Jimmy may have loved that motorcycle a bit too much.

We all told him to be careful, but like Johnny said at the memorial, "Jimmy didn't want to live in a glass house."

Jimmy once told me that his motorcycle jumped into the air a bit while he went down the steepest part of the decline on 24th street, between Dolores and Guererro.

He'd been on his way to meet me that day, and he was very pleased with the fact that he accomplished that jump.

At the time I begged him to exercise more caution, but now looking back we need to celebrate the fact that Jimmy got to live life to its fullest; the motorcycle was simply one aspect of that.

And yes, the photo posted here shows the same Ducati model Jimmy rode, if I'm not mistaken.

More Songs of Jimmy

Every time I hear music like this I imagine driving in Jimmy's truck, or hanging out in the oversized bedroom we had when we lived in Park Merced.

No Shortage of Musical Reminders

I associate Jimmy's memory with all of the bands that he'd introduced me to and vice versa. We were fans of the same genre only with slightly different favorites, but once we started hanging out together our tastes blended. So, yes, I constantly find reminders of Jimmy in music, like the Korn tune I'm video-sharing here.