Jim Fish

James Leo Fish III, better known as Jim or Jimmy, was born on July 5, 1943 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He spent his early childhood in Elizabeth and later moved to Berkeley Heights, NJ. He was adamant that he was from New Jersey and never a “Jersey boy”. Jim was the oldest of six rowdy siblings, two brothers and three sisters.Jim’s youth activities included singing, acting and sports. In high school he competed in track and as a senior he joined the football team. As a full back he became an instant star scoring three touchdowns in the first game of the season. An interesting side note to this game is that his future wife, Deborah was at that game and remembered the scoring done by this anonymous player. Jim and Deborah enjoyed learning of this coincidence when they met later in life in California. His football prowess secured him a scholarship to Lehigh University, but he was sidelined with a shoulder injury as a freshman. His college experience then concentrated on partying and bridge playing rather than studying so after two years he got the boot.His early career started on a night crew production line at a plastics company; days were spent betting at the nearby horse racetrack. He also continued his college studies at Rutgers University and eventually moved into cost engineering for the company. It just so happened that the company was owned by Mattel Toys and Jim was given the opportunity to move to California in 1971. There he moved up the ranks in the Finance Department into a management position. Post Mattel, Jim worked for an array of companies from cameras to publishing to home décor to electronic games and toys and finally to pet goods. He spent the last 10 years of his career at Worldwise. He loved working and only retired in March 2020 due to poor health.For most of the last 20 years of his life, Jim split his time between Woodland Hills in Southern California and the SF Bay area. Jim lived and worked in the Bay area during the week and commuted home to Woodland Hills nearly every weekend. He enjoyed the diversity that this brought to his life.Jim’s passions in life were music, card playing with an emphasis towards poker, word games and work. He enjoyed music of many genres and was an avid concert goer. There are too many to mention but a few notables were Woodstock and most of the Coachella concerts. In the 1980’s he studied classical music before moving back to rock and the current genre of the day.Jim was a founding member of the East Bay Poker Society, playing nearly every Monday night for 17 years. And on other days of the week it was on-line poker, fortunately with low stakes. Another long-lasting card game was pinochle played nearly every Saturday night for 37 years with Deborah and their good friends Jorge and Renee.Jim passed away on August 5, 2020. He is survived by his wife, Deborah and his three sisters, Louise, Kathy and Carol, his two brothers, Frank and Ken, numerous nieces and nephews and Tina, his faithful and possessive parrot of 34 years.Jim’s last hope was to vote in the presidential election; that was not to be for him. But we can.