31 December 2025
Jim was born in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve – an auspicious date if ever there was one, as if he arrived already aligned with fresh starts, late-night toasts, and a life inclined toward memorable experiences.
What makes a BFF?
I met Jim when I began teaching in 1968. People on the outside probably questioned what drew us to become friends. Good question. I remember we enjoyed stirring the pot. Men and women as friends? Questionable during those times. But the answer lived somewhere in the simple truth that we just liked talking about and sharing so many common interests. History, reading, food, wine, camping, Civil War reenactments, traveling, maps, thrift stores, flags, science fiction….
Was it karma?
Over the years, I was honored to become a member of his family, watched his daughters grow up, share many dinners, travels and experiences. Special times too numerous to list.
The result: BFsF. For 55 years.
Illness was a sneaky thief
Jim’s activities became restricted as a result of pulmonary disease. Many good times were had in spite of this challenge.
However, travel did come to an end. Our trips to India, South Africa, Cuba, Panama Canal, Europe, West Africa’s coast, China, Peru, Galapagos, Iceland, and Antartica would remain memories and travel movies we enjoyed at home.
From which one gets the strangest ideas
Jim once shared the story of a friend who joined him in the ranks of E Clampus Vitus, where they served as Minor Historians. When this fellow Clamper died, he asked to be cremated. That seemed well and perfectly ordinary—right up until the moment he went off the rails by asking his buddies to fire his cremated remains out of a cannon at the next Clamp Out. So be it! Unlike the stuffy or serious secret societies such as the Masons or Odd Fellows, the request fit perfectly with the more fun-loving Clampers! Or, perhaps it was the drink.
However, remembering this story gave me an idea.
I visited Jim the day before I flew off to London for two weeks. We discussed travel and friendship. I thanked him for being so influential in my life. “I know I am the person I am because of you. I may have majored in history and traveled, but it was you that really deepened my love of history, broadened my interests, and opened me to so much more as I traveled thru life and around the world.”
Little did I suspect that Jim would pass away the very next afternoon.
Jim didn’t go to London with me in 2023, but he has been along on every trip since. Knowing he would be cremated, I had previously asked if he would mind that in the future, he accompany me in the form of ashes and spirit during my travels around the world. He was the kind of guy who thought that was a good idea.
The Spirit is what counts
I typically spend this day celebrating my Bestie”s birthday. Since he passed on to the travel world in the sky, I have sprinkled some of his ashes in beautiful sites around the world. His ashes have been spread on 5 continents, in 14 countries and 10 states. I sought sites that Jim would have loved – a battlefield, a cannon, a fortress, sites of solitude, beauty and always with the best views.
2023
In 2023, Jim sits next to both the Eastern Zeus and the Western Zeus atop Mt. Nemrut. Here he may watch the sun rise and set on the beautiful land of Turkey. He is among the geraniums of Istanbul overlooking Ayasofia and hearing the daily calls to prayer.
Jim rests at Antietam Creek, Harpers Ferry, the DMZ in Seoul South Korea, and among the monuments and Singing Sands of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. We enjoyed hiking around the Khövsgöc Lake of Mongolia; the Ermitage Pond in Switzerland; to Roncolo Castle in Bolzano, Italy; and around the ruins of Turkey’s Ancient Troy and Gallipoli.
His ashes are part of the Euphrates, Italy’s Talvera, the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers.
2024
In 2024, Jim returned to India to remain in spirit at the Ghandi Memorial in Delhi. I places his ashes at the Tibetology gardens of Upper Tadong, India. He rests among the memorial chorten atop Dochula Pass with magnificent views over the Himalayas and Mount Everest when it is clear, and overlooks the majestic Tiger’s Nest in Paro, Bhutan.
He traveled with his wife, Phoebe, and I back to his beloved Bakersfield home; to the wilds of a goat farm in Minnesota; and onto a hill of Fiscalini Ranch overlooking our Pacific. His spirit returned to the Amazon with its spectacular sunsets, to the waters of Iguaçu Falls in both Brazil and Argentina, among the reeds and waters where great Jaguars roam and hunt, and below Christ the Redeemer in Rio.
No better place for Jim than with the cannon of the Antietam National Battlefield in Sharpsburg, MD. We shared the New Year’s Eve festivities around the plaza in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. He would have liked that.
2025
In 2025, his ashes became forever part of Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Malo and the Seine below Notre Dame in France. He is sprinkled around Morocco among the Roman ruins of Volubilis, among the cannon atop the Bastion in Essaouira, on a mountain trail in the Atlas Mountains, and in the sands of the Saraha.
Little spirits of Jim remain around Germany along the historic walls of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, at my favorite view in Würzburg, in the gardens of King Ludwig’s Herrenchiemsee Castle, at the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg, and upon the flowing waters of the Danube in Regensburg (left).
His daughter, Terri, and Phoebe graced a cannon with Jim’s spirit at Baranof Fortress in Sitka, Alaska.
Ashes remain among the 20,000 Jizo statues of Narai in Japan, in a Samurai’s koi pond in Kanazawa, among the shrines of Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, overlooking the bullet trains and the Toji Pagoda in Kyoto.
He overlooks the beautiful Otorii Gate of Miyajima Island; rests among the entitled deer of Nara; and among incredible Jizo, temples and the soaring spiritual trees of Mount Koya of Koyasan.
And Jim would love that he remains spiritually a part of the Great Meteoran, Varlaam and Roussanou Monasteries of Meteora, Greece. He rests at the finish line at Olympia. From the heights of Athens’ Acropolis, heroic vistas unfurl before him, as if he were an emperor surveying his realm. Around him, I know, the friendly, Parthenon cats will be his company.
So far, I haven’t been arrested
This became my mantra as I surreptitiously sprinkled ashes around the world. I am certain I am recorded on security cameras; perhaps guards wondered what that lady was doing over there. Ashes were spread at over 85 gardens, rivers, ponds, bastions, memorials and ancient sites around the world.
No one asked, no one removed me, no one brought the cuffs. Over three years, it remained a mission of love.
New Year’s Eve – Not Forgotten
