Jim Harcum's Funeral

Jim Harcum was a friend of mine.  We got word on the Tuesday, the 19th of February that he died on Sunday, the 17th, from some sort of lung disorder.  We made a decision right then and there to go to the funeral and pay our respects.

We met Jim and his wife in 1968 and became friends right away.  His wife was the leader of a chapter of Epsilon Sigma Alpha sorority, a women's philanthropic and social organization.  The group was active and we all had a lot of fun together going to conventions and other events.

Jim, like me, was a boater.  Over the years he had power boats, a sailboat, and a pontoon boat.  That was our connection, even to the point of going sailing in the Virgin Islands with some other friends of ours.

My wife and I left Louisville Kentucky for Virginia early on Wednesday morning and stayed with our daughter in Virginia Beach.  On Thursday we set out for the peninsula and Yorktown where the reception remembering Jim was being held at a funeral parlor.

We had dinner at Harpoon Larry's in Newport News, a favorite eating place of ours whenever we went to see the Harcum's, which we usually did every summer when visiting our daughter.  It was a small homage.

The memorial was an emotional event for me.  I had trouble talking about Jim without having my throat swell holding back the tears.  There were pictures of him over the years depicting the various activities in which he was involved.  The pictures included, of course, his family and friends.

I talked for a long time to an even closer friend of his, Jim Charleston, who told me of Jim's last moments.  His lungs were failing and became precipitously worse over the two weeks prior to his death.  He called for a beer to drink just before he died.  Jim was not a heavy drinker but enjoyed a glass or two of beer, or bourbon.  Jim went peacefully, surrounded by his family.

At the memorial, we saw friends that we hadn't seen for a while.  It was nice.  Finally, we left there and went back to Va Beach.  I was still quite emotional but kept it in.

The next day we went back to the peninsula, to lunch at Smokey Bones, a BBQ place that the Harcums, friends, and we likewise frequented; another homage.  Then we went on to the funeral.

The funeral service was at St. Mark Lutheran church in Yorktown.  The church was full but I knew scant few of the people there.  I was particularly surprised by some who weren't there.  Jim was active in the church and I think most of those there were members of the congregation.

It was a Lutheran service and very similar to Roman Catholic.  The pastor related how he went to give Jim the Eucharistic bread and wine only to find that he'd picked up an empty kit.  He stopped and got some white bread and cheap wine at a convenience store and used that.  The wine given as the Eucharistic wine at this service was that same cheap wine in memory of what happened with Jim.

The same little wooden box with the name James Paul Harcum that I saw at the funeral parlor, was on a table in front of the altar.  It dawned on me then that those were Jim's ashes.

After the service there was a reception.  Mark, Jim's son-in-law, gave a eulogy and asked me to say a few words, which I did.

I related an episode that occurred one cold, rainy, wintry day, about this time of year, when Jim and I set out to take my boat back to Merrimack Shores and went aground in the Poquoson River.  The Coast Guard came to pull us off and repeatedly ran aground as well.  Watching their antics, I asked Jim if we were obliged to take a line if one was thrown by them.  He said no, where was the whiskey?  I had none aboard.  He then  impressed upon me, that day, that a bottle of whiskey was required aboard any boat for just this sort of event.

Mark followed that with a beer toast, everyone had been given a few ounces of beer in plastic glass, to Jim Harcum, husband, father, and friend.  Everyone, including my wife and I, drank to his name.

A little while later we left.  So ends a long friendship, in life anyway, that spanned more than 50 years.  We did a lot, laughed a lot, and made some great memories.  Propriety prevents me from detailing some of them.

A Strange Sight Indeed

We, my wife and I, were going in on the ramp to I64 West from the Gene Snyder North the other day when we espied a committee of buzzards in the green area between the ramp and the interstate.  There were twenty of them, maybe a few more or less.  It was a rainy day not very cold but it is winter.  They may have been feeding, we couldn't tell.

Not a remarkable sight but wait.  We finished our business and were on the way home, about an hour later, when we again got on the Gene Snyder; returning north.  As we crossed the overpass of I64, there on the light standards, were the buzzards.  They had reconvened atop them, all twenty or so at five or six per standard, with their wings stretched out.  Just roosting there, with their wings out as if drying them.

They were there before we came onto the freeway and remained there after we passed.  All those buzzards, each with his wings spread out; quite a strange sight indeed.