Jon Christopher Thalis

The loss of Chris has struck me hard. The time we spent together seems so brief now looking back 50 years ago but his influence on me lasted a lifetime. We were best friends from about 15 yrs old until about age 21. It was a different era for teenagers from 1967 to 1973 and Chris helped me take full advantage of the time. For what we did we probably have no right to have lived to age 70. I met Chris through you Paula. I met you at the Foleys riding camp. I was taken. My early trips to your house to meet up with Chris ( the new guy up on the corner) were really hound dogging trips to see you. As I got to know Chris I realized that this guy is different, he operates in his own plane. I wanted to more of this. We quickly bonded and from that day I knew that if I wanted to really have fun, and I mean fun, the kind of fun that has no limits then hang around with Chris, he will get you there. We tested every subject from girls to go karts. I wish I could relate all the stories of the different vehicles he had me on in that short time. I knew he was different when he took a miniature lawn boy tractor, and some how switched the drive gears around and tripled its speed. This was at 15 yrs old when most of us were just learning how to put gas in a lawnmower. We rode minbikes, go karts, a mail truck, Volkswagens with no bodies on them, dune buggies, dirt bikes, and then there was his dodge that I believe that until Tesla was the fastest American production car ever sold. One day I went to your house and Chris had gotten his hands on giant bungee cord which was actually a giant rubber O-ring from a sewer project in Camotop. He hung it from a tree from which he would launch himself like a giant slingshot. It scared the hell out of me. Chris and I explored the new 60s culture together with him always on the forefront. One day, age 14 or 15, I went to your house and he had replaced all the basement lights with black lights and the walls were covered with day-glo graffiti. He had all the posters, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, janice Joplin etc. My days of innocence were over. As I’ve thought about chris for the last few days a flood of memories have taken me back and made it clear just how much influence he had. A few topics: the quarry, his 80 mph go kart, cat and mouse with the police on our dune buggies, sneaking into the abandoned Rady Evans farmhouse to spy on and pilfer from the Outlaws biker gang, skipping school and ordering beer from dgs to be delivered to the house by Junior Proctor, drag racing out on old river road, the rope swing on the Potomac, skipping school so that we could find the nudist hippie camp on the island in the Potomac, 70 miles an hour down persimmon tree road in a three wheeled mail truck with no body, chris on the throttle and me holding the unanchored steering column, fielding old cars, field parties, Ocean city like vagabonds, and a whole lot of firsts! Chris had a mindset that set me free, “doing what you’re supposed to be doing is no fun compared to what we could be doing”.