JIM COLBY

Jim is a guy who showed up at Clarke. We had Mrs. Casey together. And he and I got along pretty decently. Although I spent most of my time hanging around with Ken Bartz and Greg Flemal.

In 7th grade Jim and I got to be better friends. We had every single class together that year. For the life of me, I never understood why we hung around a bit. Jim was a pompous ass. Seriously. He had as big an ego as I've ever seen on a human being. He gave Craig Rysticken a run for his money. No joke, Jim once told the tale of how he and his dad wrestled alligators in Florida.

I think Jim's parents had money. Because Jim always did too. He seemed to live the good life. But not all that money was well spent. Jim actually bought one of those sequined Michael Jackson gloves.

Jim sometimes came over to my house during lunch. See my entry on Jason Anderson for a story regarding one of those trips.

For whatever reason, Jim once tried to convince Toby Schwartz that I was an unloved child. He asked Toby to grill me on the subject. Very strange. Rest assured Jim, my parents always loved me. Although there were certainly times that they didn't like me.

Jason Anderson and I found a term in our science book which we dubbed Jim for awhile - "gymnosperm." We thought it was funny.

Jim, Toby Schwartz and myself sort became a trio that year. Although Jim always wanted to be with Kevin Dehne and Jim Colby. But Kevin and Jason didn't think too highly of Jim. But no one really ever put Jim in his place.

One day in gym class, Kevin somehow got a jumprope wrapped around Jim's wrist. And he yanked as hard as he could. Jim screamed in pain, then came over to the bubbler to water down his reddening wrist. The next day, the extent of the damage could be seen. Jim's wrist was all chewed up and scabbed over. It looked as if it hurt like hell.

Jim often hung around with Tom Grassman. But according to Tom, it was not by choice. Tom recently told me that for the most part, he couldn't stand Jim. But both of their fathers were friends. therefore, a forced friendship was forged between the two.

I'm not sure the details, but Jim was apparently staying with the Grassman's for several days. And he played sick one day in order to stay home from school. Unfortunately for him, Meff and Tom were going to a movie that night. And because Jim was "sick" Tom's parents wouldn't allow him to come along, despite his pleas of being "better." But the egomaniac tried to justify his staying home, when upon Tom's return, he bragged about watching some awful science fiction film on TV, called "Saturn 3."

Jim and I actually spent an afternoon together once, wandering the streets of Two Rivers. Jim stole a couple of beef sticks from Super America for us to eat. He also paid a ton of money at Evans for some fancy coat. We ended up dragging that thing around all afternoon. At some point we stopped at Pizza Hut, where Jim challenged class of 1990's Chris Zinn to a few games of Space Invaders.

Toby and I invented a language. It was nothing more than made-up words. I do now that we shared it with Jason Anderson. But we refused to share it with Jim. And he got so jealous! So he and Ron (Cuyler) Gretz decided to create a language of their own, in order to combat ours. They had some sort of bizarre code which featured letters and numbers. Jim would call me a "G-29" or something like that. He and Ron thought it was great fun.

Jason and Kevin planned to beat the shit out of Jim at the end of the school year. We all talked about the upcoming event. But it never happened. And Jim never knew. They never got another chance, as Jim moved away that summer.

Jim's family moved to Illinois. I believe they moved to Moline. Tom's family moved to Illinois a year later. And I think they had a little bit of contact with one another over the years.

At some point Jim got married to a woman named Melissa. Today they are back in Wisconsin. It looks like they're living in an apartment in Delavan.

UPDATE - 6/13/07 - It looks like Jim and family have moved to Fontana, Wisconsin.