My Sunday Feeling

It was quite a sight. At around 9:45 or so last Friday the tall bank buildings on Capitol Avenue started disgorging a cloud of witnesses all dressed in dark clothes. There must have been a hundred or so of us making a mostly silent march upon the Cathedral of St. Andrew on Louisiana. It was a dark cold day. The marchers trudged together, hands in pockets, eyes fixed mostly at points on the ground.



We were going to Mass that morning to say goodbye to our friend Jim Glover whose fight with cancer of the brain finally ended 2 days before. There are probably worse ways to die. Offhand I can't think of any. But there probably are.



God, in His Plan, tends to specialize in visiting misery upon his saints. Or it at least seems that way. James Jay Glover would scoff at the notion of his being a saint. But he was. Or he was if saints wore bow ties and practiced law. OK. Assume for the sake of argument that lawyers can't be saints. Jim was a kind, loving, gentle, devout Christian gentleman who as far as I know did not have an enemy in this life.



You pick an adjective. I'm tired.


Jim was a tall man. Taller than me. He had a lantern jaw and a barrel chest even as his illness took its toll. But he was as gentle and soft spoken as he was tall. He was a bookish sort who favored bow ties. Our friendship began in the weight room of the Little Rock Racquet Club in the eighties. I don't know what he saw in me. We could not have been less similar. He was a devout Roman Catholic and family man. I am a single Methodist and curmudgeon who can get in touch with his agnostic side really quickly. He was unfailingly cheerful and optimistic. I have a considerable reputation for unrequited cynicism who views the daily advent of the sunrise with something approaching alarm. You get the picture. Joined at the hip we were not.


And yet, he called me frequently over the intervening years generally for no other reason than to let me know whatever goofy thing was rolling around in his head that day. One didn't-or at least I didn't-tend to have very linear conversations with Jim Glover. Jim frequently spoke in non-sequiters, his phrases linked tenuously together by whatever was amusing him at the time. And you got a lot of dead air with Jim. Some of it was fatigue. Most of it was him laughing on the other end with a"snort snort snort" as he awaited my response to whatever drollery he had put out initially.


I am going to share some of these conversations. Most of them I remember with crystalline clarity. As an aside, I am told that I have his voice nailed. This is not surprising given all the times I listened to that voice on the other end of the line. Since I can't channel my inner Jim for Gentle Reader, try to imagine a 6'4' tenor version of Kermit the Frog. In a bow tie. That should help.

I apologize in advance for the way this looks. Blogger.com sometimes doesn't accept editing very well.

LITTLE ROCK RACQUET CLUB- Circa 1986





Jim: I suppose you have been wondering why I've been spending so much time in here lately.



Me: Not really.

Jim: Good! I'll be happy to tell you. Of course you know I've quit drinking.



Me: No I didn't know that. But then again, I didn't see the paper today, Jim.


Jim: It's not that I was having a problem or anything. It's just my wife would vastly prefer that I spend my leisure time in here.



Me: That's why I refuse to get one.



Jim: One what?


Me: A wife.



Jim: I think it would do you some good. Being married might improve your mood. We should talk about that.



Me: We should not.


Jim: That's the spirit. I knew you would have an open mind. I'll call you tomorrow.





I noticed that I hadn't seen him around much in the early part of 2000. I didn't think much about it. I just assumed that he was had gotten busy with work or stuff with his kids.


I have shot Homecoming for Catholic High for years. I do a good job and I get a sweatshirt for my efforts. This doesn't exactly make me Annie Leibovitz. But my price is one that Headmaster and Maximum Dictator Steve Straessle is willing to pay.

It was about 2003 or 2004 that Jim's daughter Sarah was named to the Homecoming Court. A prouder sonuvabitch never lived. He smiled and snuck a wave at me as they came across where I stood with the camera and unipod firing away. The buttons on his shirt somehow remained affixed in defiance of the laws of physics.

Sometimes in photography you don't really know what you are getting at the time you are shooting. But I remember thinking at the time:

"What happened to his hair?'


E MAIL FROM JIM GLOVER


Thank you so much for the homecoming pictures. I cannot tell you how much this means to me. Please tell me where you would send these for a good print because I want to get a nice frame and everything. You are certainly a gifted photographer and I thank you again for your kindness in remembering me in this way. I will never forget it.


Jim


E MAIL TO J. MARK DAVIS (Jim Glover's friend and law partner)


Mark:



What's going on w/Jim? I sent him some pics I took of he and his daughter at homecoming and the response was..........emotional to say the least. Is he sick? I mean, I noticed the hair.





E MAIL FROM J. MARK DAVIS


You need to know he has cancer of the brain. The situation is not good. In fact, it is very bad.


Pray for him.





I made it a point after then to keep in touch better. And I became one of the target recipients of his e-mails in which he told friends and family about his scans and treatments in the years to come. All of them were typically chatty and discursive as if he were discussing an upcoming trip rather than life-altering surgeries and chemotherapy. The only complaint that I ever heard uttered from him was that he said that chemo was boring. It made him too tired to read but that he didn't like sitting there for all that time.


That was it.



PHONE CALL FROM JIM GLOVER


Me: Hello

Jim: Well, I suppose you've heard about Matt.

Me: Good Morning to you too.

Jim: snort snort

Me: What's going on?

Jim: Well, Matt is leaving seminary. He's decided not to be a priest.


Me: Wow. For a minute there I thought you were going to tell me he had quit drinking too.

Jim: snort. No, he still drinks. He's coming back to Little Rock. He wants to get married and go to law school. I thought you might want to know.


Me: Ummmmmmmmm.....why are you telling me all this?



Jim: Well, if you and any of your Protestants friends want to go as priests for Halloween I gotta bunch of clerical collars and black shirts sitting around my house gathering dust.





During this period of time, two of Jim's partners Mark Davis, Mac Norton and I were involved in highly protracted litigation involving a little bank in South Arkansas. There was much high drama in those days this being at times the legal equivalent of a knife fight.





PHONE CALL FROM JIM GLOVER


Me: Hello?


Jim: I have a problem with the government.


Me: Wait a minute goddamn it don't you start in on me too! I mean it's bad enough I gotta.....

Jim: Noooooooo. No. I am steering clear of y'all's problem. I come in peace. I have to live with everybody. And besides, I don't have a problem with you. I have a problem with the government.

Me: Hmmph...

Jim: None of us have a problem with you. We all like you over here at Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. snort snort.

Me: My relief at this news is boundless.


Jim: snort. Even Mac Norton likes you. snort. He can be a little intense. I've been working with him on that. I have told him that you are basically a good person with a good heart and that you generally mean well. It just takes awhile to figure that out.



Me: You told him that shit?


Jim: snort. Yes. snort.


Me: Is there a point to this call?



Jim: Yes. Is there any reason why nobody in the general counsel's office for Health and Human Services in Dallas will return a damn phone call?

Me: Yeah. I told 'em about you.

Jim: snort. snort.



PHONE CALL FROM JIM GLOVER TO ME

Jim: I have just awful news!

Me: Gee...what's going on?

Jim: I just found out yesterday that my neurosurgeon is related to you.

Me: David? Yeah. He's married to my cousin. So he got his license back huh?




Jim: He's such a nice person. One would never make the connection with you otherwise. Anyway, could you do me a favor?

Me: Sure. If I can.

Jim: I am scheduled to have brain surgery next Friday.

Me: OK.

Jim: Please don't go out on the town with Dr. Reding on Thursday night.

Me: What?



Jim: Or if you go out just make sure that he sticks to iced tea. He may partake of sweet tea. I am reasonable. A man needs to enjoy himself. snort.


PHONE CALL FROM JIM GLOVER CIRCA SPRING OF 2006

Me: Hello?

Jim: Mark tells me you are going to help with Miracle League. That's wonderful.

Me: I've never worked with disabled kids. This will be interesting.

Jim: Will you miss Boy's Club?



Me: I'll miss the kids. I won't miss the guys in the stands who are packing guns. It's a near thing.



Jim: I just want to know what Mark Davis is doing on the Miracle League board?

Me: I dunno. The work of the Lord maybe?

Jim: Is there any evidence in the record before us that indicates that he knows the first damn thing about baseball?

Me: Well, I ......

Jim: Has he ever once taken a swing in anger at anything bigger than a golf ball? Do we know this? Someone needs to look into his qualifications to serve on that board is all that I am saying.

Me: Don't you have anything else to do over there? Apart from calling and bugging me with these ruminations that is?

Jim: snort.

PHONE CALL FROM ME TO JIM'S HOUSE APRIL 15TH 2006 OR 2007


Me: Hi, Jim. I'm returning your call. It's about.....


Jim: Oh. It's just you.

Me: Well....forgive me for the intrusion.

Jim: No. I was startled at first when you called.

Me: Startled.

Jim: Yes.

Me: Keep going. I'm riveted as usual.

Jim: I've been under considerable stress lately. Perhaps you've heard.

Me: So I've heard.....

Jim: I looked at the caller ID and it said " United States Government." I just wanted to make sure that if it wasn't the IRS calling me on tax day. I'm just not in the mood to talk to the IRS. But it's just you. I'll talk to you.


The priest talked a lot about heaven the other day. I don't think about heaven as much as I might. I mean, I can't believe that it is paved with gold or that folks wear wings. And I certainly hope and pray that there are no harps. Or accordions for that matter.

I hate accordions.


If there is a heaven, and in the unlikely event that I am admitted, I hope to see my family and friends that have gone on before. I imagine that I will come up on Jim Glover in a study somewhere. He will be wearing his bow tie and he will be surrounded by the books and crossword puzzles he loved.

Knowing him, he will rise to greet me when he sees me walk in.

I will tell him to keep his seat.

After all, it's just me.


It's just me Jim.