This eulogy was prepared from recollections of my wife Angi over a lifetime of knowing Jim.
Angi first met Jim about 1970 and was his friend for life.
Angi related to me all that she remembered about Jim. I put her notes together in word form.
I first met Jim in 2007 and liked him from the start.
This eulogy was presented to our friends at Jim’s Celebration of Life on January 10, 2026.
THE EULOGY
We have come here today to bid farewell to a good friend.
What can you say about someone who was such a nice person?
Words will not do justice, and so we have to rely on our memories.
Jim was one of those guys that people liked the minute they met him. He was so friendly that way.
With a genuine smile, he would greet you with a handshake or a hug.
Jim liked to learn what had been happening to each of us of recent times and what was happening now. He would listen with interest to conversations (the best that he could because he was hard of hearing). And he would give his opinion about various topics but would not express his thoughts openly about some subjects. For those “private” subjects, he would only talk with Angi, his friend of more than fifty years. All in all, he was interested in the “current events” of our lives.
Jim was a man of many talents.
When he was younger, in 1963, when he was 17, Jim became the Comment Editor-in-Chief of his high school magazine The Comment.
In high school, he was also a cheer leader.
He attended the University of Minnesota for a year but had to leave to help his dad with the family business.
Later, he was in the army, where he was stationed in Heidelberg, Germany. His first main assignment was in the data processing department, but he later worked as a Chaplains Assistant, where he led the choir, among his other duties. While in the church, he wrote a Christmas play (which was performed), and he was the leader of a youth group.
Undoubtedly, though, his best takeaway from his stint in the service was his meeting with a fellow serviceman, Ron, a guy who would become Jim’s lifelong friend.
Jim and Ron would play the music for the church services on their guitars, and they would also play at the Officer’s Club. And, at times, they would be invited to play at private clubs, off base.
After leaving the service, they kept in touch with each other by visits and by phone, talking frequently for an hour or more each time.
When Jim was discharged from the service, he bought a VW car and spent three months touring Europe before returning to the United States.
After Jim was out of the service, he was approached by Dayton’s (a high-end department store in Minneapolis with several locations in the surrounding area) to work as a model. Posing apparently came easy for Jim. He would just smile and present his best angle.
In addition to modeling, Jim had a few notable jobs. He ran his dad’s trophy-manufacturing business, Awards of America and later his dad’s other business, Cresta Industries, Inc. Still later, he used his managerial skills to be the manager of the Saint Paul Hilton Hotel in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. That’s a pretty big deal, if you ask me.
After he moved to Houston, he began a business of selling framed, copper pictures of athletic teams.
Jim was a very smart person. His measured IQ put him in the upper ½% of the population. He was a member of the Mensa society but did not like to attend their events. He said all of that was boring.
He once mentioned that when he was in one of the earlier grades in school, his teacher told the class to read a page that she had handed out to them. Jim read for a very short time and then sat there (while the others continued to study the material). His teacher asked Jim why he was not reading. Jim replied he had read everything on the page. The teacher, a bit annoyed, asked Jim to tell her about the article. Jim quoted verbatim a paragraph at random. Apparently, he had something like a photographic memory.
My gosh, how many talents did this guy have?
For relaxation, he enjoyed classical music, easy listening music, and light rock, and for that, he had an extensive CD and cassette tape collection.
Jim had a friend who lived in the Cayman Islands. On one trip there to visit his friend, he learned yoga. Naturally, he became good at it. Big surprise there, huh? He continued practicing yoga after he returned to the U.S. because it simply made him feel good.
His interest in reading was vast. He had a large collection of classical as well as modern novels. He had books of poetry, self-help books, books on stretching, and books that dealt with healing (both physical and emotional). He had several reference books such as dictionaries, thesauruses, synonym finders, and a writer’s guide. All in all, he had more than 250 books, most of which we have donated to the Houston Public Library.
There is a structure near the Houston Zoo called the labyrinth. That particular structure is actually the St. Paul’s United Methodist Church Labyrinth. A labyrinth is a maze-like, circular, walking structure, where one is supposed to walk from the outer edge, around the inner circles, and in toward the center. Walking the labyrinth path calmly and slowly can help a person gain serenity and peace. Jim enjoyed going there and walking the path. That slow walk gave him a sense of calmness. It seems that the labyrinth was something sort of mystical to Jim.
He also liked to walk at Tanglewood Blvd north of San Felipe and also at Memorial Park. The trees there gave him a peaceful feeling. Jim, Angi, and I went there many times when the weather permitted.
As a healthful activity, Jim did stretching exercises for two or more hours every day. He also worked out at the YMCA several times a week.
Jim tried Tai Chi for a while, although perhaps he enjoyed the camaraderie with the people in the class more than the actual forms because he had such a hard time physically doing the forms. But once a month, they would have a meal, and Jim would make his delicious homemade chicken soup.
His favorite thing as a doodad on a table or a magnetic clip on the refrigerator door was an owl. He liked owl calendars, owl pictures, ceramic owls, owl coffee cups; just anything owl.
He also liked cats. When Jim would visit Angi and me, he liked petting our cat, Kitty, and Kitty liked him.
Along with his love of music, Jim enjoyed playing the guitar. When he was younger (after he left the service), he and some of his friends would sit around and strum to Simon and Garfunkel songs and other music that he enjoyed. Angi was fortunate to have heard him play years ago when he played at various venues.
Unknown to most of us, me included, Jim had also learned to play the piano. (The list of his talents just goes on and on.) He hit the keyboard running when he was in the first grade and continued through school, playing remarkably well for a young person.
Jim’s best times were those when he was with friends, just talking about nothing in particular. Not one for board games or Pictionary, he enjoyed just being with friends, drinking a cup of coffee, and talking about “stuff.”
At Christmas time, he loved to sit back and listen to someone read aloud the story A Cup of Christmas Tea. He would often tear up during the reading.
Jim had a kind heart, as anyone who knew him would have agreed. For example, even though he might be in pain, he would help his downstairs neighbor Dorothy, a 90-year-old woman, almost any time she asked him to help her, by driving her to an appointment with her doctor or with some other tasks. He told us many times of tasks that she asked him to help her with. He said once that he thought she might have planned some of those tasks just to try to be “closer” to him. But he never followed her clues.
Jim, a man whom everyone liked, has gone from us, but he will live on in our hearts even though we will miss him terribly.