A November challenge

November 1, 2021

Happy November! Sometimes when focused on multiple projects, it’s helpful to push yourself a step or two beyond… to get past the comfort zone. So I decided to take on a new challenge — write something here, every day during November. I hope you come by occasionally to see what’s on my mind.

TODAY I want to get down on ‘paper’ spur-of-the-moment remembrances of a good friend, Jim, who passed away in 2004, at age 40.

My first memory of James K. Short was a sunny morning, probably in June. Each of us, age four, was piloting a trike along the sidewalk of East Powell in Evansville. 

Jim’s beagle, Toby, tirelessly followed him everywhere. Whenever Peggy, Jim’s mother, wondered where her son was, she needed only to glance a few doors down for the dog, who’d be sitting in the front yard of whose-ever’s house Jim happened to be in at that hour — often mine.

Youngest of four boys, Jim always managed to have wheels of his own. The fiercely pedaled trike gave way to a scratched-and-dented red wagon (Toby as freight), which next evolved into a series of bicycles, each increasingly stripped of extraneous weight for improved aerodynamics. No kickstands allowed.

The bike, though, was transport of choice then. And all through early and middle school years Jim explored seemingly every street in our bucolic town.

[Simply by knowing the guy, I too, developed a strong working knowledge of Evansville wayfinding. It was knowledge that would serve me well later as well, with alternate driving routes to places like Karma Records, the east side’s intricate network of alleys, which would come in handy during high school.]

And then of course, he became my first friend with a car all his own, a 1980 Datsun 210…followed soon after by a super-slick ‘82 200SX. Both of which he drove like he stole. (Mac remembers: “I remember his driving at lunch. We had exactly 31 minutes, when we could go off campus as seniors. We would have a carful headed to Taco John’s and he drove with intensity.”)

The kid was skillful behind the wheel from Day One, as he proved time and again. Should’ve raced at Indy.

“Shorty” was a winner. A natural at games — any and all games — part of Jim’s strategic skill and athleticism can be attributed to competing with his brothers on the driveway and sandlot. 

He was also blessed with enormous, above-average luck. A switch-hitting infielder, Jim was the teammate who would deliver the needed bunt, lead the perfect pass, or lay in the clutch basket off glass, in traffic. 

Shorty was rarely on the losing end, from the three consecutive state high school soccer titles, down to the least consequential card game or Ping Pong match. He was a gracious competitor as well, the kind of quiet leader who made everybody around him work harder.

Jim went on to play soccer at the University of Evansville, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1986. He graduated from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1990, and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids and did a Pulmonary Intensive Care Fellowship at IU School of Medicine, and obtained three board certifications.

He died the day after his 40^th birthday. By his own hand. I could go into that, but I choose instead to keep it light, now. (Perhaps another time.)

I was saying to Christi that, if you subtract the hours you spend with family and try to figure out who’s left —who put in huge minutes on the clock of your lifetime? — Jimmy still to this day ranks in the top five easily for me. From grade school to about age 20, we were inseparable.

Highly random comments on Jim Short — an appreciation (in no order):

1. As previously mentioned, I met Jim the first week we arrived in Evansville. I was 4. I remember meeting him. He was riding his trike like a psycho up and down the sidewalk of East Powell Avenue. He was standoffish when we first said hello.

2. Playing hoops in the neighbor’s driveway, Jim was fearless taking the ball inside against bigger/older guys. A lefty, he developed this wicked, unstoppable left-side running/hooking layup he’d release just before he would step out of bounds on the baseline. We all hated that shot, and instantly gave it its appropriate name: “Trash.”

3. One summer afternoon when we were about 12 and I was over at the Short house, which backed up to a quiet church parking lot, Jim and I looked out his backyard window to find, plain as day, a guy and his girlfriend screwing in broad daylight in the parking lot. (The young lady was sitting on the hood of their parked car.) Probably for no reason other than we were 12 years old, we looked at each other, and then ran outside shouting and laughing. The couple freaked, dove into their car and sped away.

4. I attended Memorial High School — got the great education I got, and have the lifelong friends I have, because of having Jimmy as a neighbor. (My siblings had attended the public and I asked my parents to attend the Catholic school, MHS).

Time logged together includes:  

Grade school: daily hang time/sleepovers; numerous bicycle adventures; driveway and YBA basketball + sandlot baseball, football and soccer; Arad McCutcheon basketball school; movies; travel to Shakamak in 1975; to Quincy IL in 1976 and 1977… the list goes on.

High school: Countless hours at Dairy Queen, 1979-82; at Hartke Pool summer 1979 daily, and Tri-State Racquet Club easily six days a week solid every summer 1980-1982; numerous soccer team practices, games, related trips to St Louis and Indy; one Florida spring break trip (1982).

Shorty would be proud of his entire family. I was recently looking at photos of his actor son Jake Short (who is currently playing a leading role in a UK soccer comedy series). Spitting image of his Dad.

To Jimmy – wherever you are