Jimmy Jones

My memories of Jim are those of a brother some 14 years older. I left home when he was only 3 or 4. But when I came home to visit he was always a big part of that visit. We played games, like, see if you can run to the corner of the house and turn the corner before I shoot you in the butt with your BB gun. Not as bad as it sounds it was just an excuse to see how fast he could run, all though I did motivate him with a few near misses and one well placed shot just as he turned the corner. Yea, I am probably at least partially responsible for some of his exploits. I was careful to not hurt him when we wrestled or played other silly games like racing down the dirt road to the corner and back. Always giving Keith and Jim big leads, but the real competition was between Keith and Jim. Keith treated Jim the same as he would one of his class mate of his own age, never seeming to consider their age difference. Keith used to practice pitching with Jim catching for him, with a fielder’s glove. And Keith threw hard. Speaking of wrestling, when Jim was younger I was gentle, using only used as much strength as required to pin him. The thing about Jim is he had only one speed. He played as hard and fast as he could. By the time he was a teenager I learned not to wrestle with Jim. Cheri and I had purchased two bicycles and brought them to the country so we could go riding. We left them at the farm and gave Keith and Jim permission to ride them, after all they were like only about 10 and 13 years old, what could it hurt. That was the last time I saw those bikes in one piece. The good news is Keith and Jim learned how to repair bikes. The bad, well apparently they had been challenging each other to more and more daring rides down hills and homemade jumps. I learned my lesson (not). So I brought them a motor bike (small engine, 20 or 30 mph max). I don’t remember what happened to that bike but I remember it made Keith and Jim very excited when I unloaded the bike. One time we went target practicing with dad’s shot gun. We went behind the farm house to the edge of the woods where trash had been dumped and there were plenty of tin cans to shoot. I had Keith set a can on a stump and then come back beside me where shot the can. Jim started jumping up and down yelling that he wanted to shoot too. I told him OK but, wait until Keith had set up another can to shoot. Keith had just set the can on the stump and turned around to come back when Jim grabbed the shot gun from my hand and it went off. The gun was pointed directly at Keith, chests high! Keith had his arms in the air for some reason and apparently the shot went under one of his arms. After a few minutes the color came back into Keith’s face and he assured me that he was OK. We went back to the house and put the gun away. Another trip to the farm I brought a model airplane with a gas powered engine. I had built the airplane and this was the first time to try and fly it. This was the kind of plane attached to lines that the “pilot” held and the plane circled the around and around the “pilot”. Jim was so excited and of course he wanted to fly it too. I said he could but I would have to learn to fly it first. Since there was no hard surface to use as a runway to take off from, in the field, I had Keith to toss the plane into the air. He was to take a couple of steps and then toss it gently into the air, nose high. This worked and I flew the plane until it ran out of fuel. It was Keith’s turn to fly the plane and Jim was going to toss it into the air. Jim was so excited. I refueled and started the motor on the airplane. Jim held the plane over his head ran a few steps and hurled the airplane straight down onto the ground, AND then stepped on the plane with his size 13s. That was the end of that airplane. I was able to salvage the engine and control wires. I came home and built a larger plane and we had better luck with that one. We took turns, Keith Jim and I, until the control wires broke and the airplane took off on its on, dragging the control wire along with it, until it hit the fence and sliced off a wing. Speaking of Jim’s feet: Jim grew from a little kid to 6 foot 3 inches teenager. It was so funny for me to come home and see how much he had grown each time. He did not grow uniformly. His nose grew first, to what seemed like full size. Then his neck and feet grew, and then his body started to catch up. The last thing to grow was his head. He looked so cartoonish standing over six foot tall, with a little round boys head. He was constantly tripping over any and everything. His feet were so long and of course he ran every where. But, when he finally got it together, reaching his six foot three, he was fast, strong and had a long reach. I remember when he was living with us, we went to our church picnic. After lunch we played some games. One of those games was where one person was “it” and would knell down. Everyone else would encircle whoever was “it”, and try not to get tagged. When tagged you must freeze until someone who was unfrozen would “unfroze you, by tagging you. The game continued until the person who was “it” was able to tag everyone before they could be un-tagged (unfrozen). It was really hard to tag everyone before they would get unfrozen. Several people tried being “it” but no one could win. Until Jim was selected to be “it”. Some yelled, go! And without standing up, Jim spun around in a circle and tagged everyone before anyone could move! He could really move when he wanted.