Posted by Webb Castor on November 8, 2011:

Jim and I became very close friends while attending Mt. Lebanon High School, in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA. We shared a friendship that lasted up to and including and beyond our military days. Jim first attended Penn State and then was accepted to the prestige of West Point. I, in turn, responding to the Korean Conflict raging at the time, left college at St. Vincents and enrolled in the Naval Air Cadet program, the "Navcads." He was Army, and I was Navy! We had a few competitive laughs about that through the years. I also had the honor of presiding as best man for Jim and Joan's wedding. I loved them both. I remember the crazy days of our high school years together. Our inane activities, our private discussions about life. And loves. Our guesses at to what the future held for us. I recall one summer when Jim and I and a few buddies decided to take a trip to Rehobeth Beach, Delaware for a holiday. On the train ride, for some inexplicable reason, we pretended to be cowboys from Wyoming. We thought it was cool. The other passengers most likely thought we were teen age kids trying to impress them as cowboys. Our phony accents did not carry the day. Or the gag. Summers were always the best. We could go out and play ball or, one of our favorites, go up to the local golf course near my home after dark and harass the greens keeper, whose job was to travel the course in his jeep all the night long to assure that the watering worked, and that no one was violating his greens. Our job was to sneak around and take the hole markers and have javelin throwing contests. He would, of course hear us, and come speeding over in his jeep. We would dash into the adjoining woods to hide. He would never dare to enter those concealments. I am sure this added a great deal for Jim in his military activities regarding escape and evasion. No enemy could ever capture Jim. Not with those skills we learned early on. I also recall when Jim and I worked one summer at a grocery store as general help (it was a general store). Jim became upset when he and I were always the ones called upon to carry all of the empty return bottles down to the basement to stack and store. It was the toughest job in the store. In retaliation he, or maybe it was me, decided to take the push cart full of bottles and let it travel all the way down the stairs without our help. Of course, the push cart obliged us with the help of gravity, and bounced and plummeted wheels over top spilling out the bottles and strewing the steps and floor below with shards of broken glass. The noise was exhilarating! It even woke up our manager from his back office duties. He came out and raged. And ranted. And raged again. Jim explained that the steps were quite slippery and he should consider coating them with rubber mats. It was an employee health hazard. Even before OSHA, the manager caught on to his liability and cooled down. Whenever Jim or I were told to take the bottles down to the cellar, the cart would again mysteriously take off on its own and tumble down the steps. The manager finally stopped assigning the task to Jim and I. He never did coat the stairs with rubber. Another military skill learned for Jim in covert harassment of the enemy. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end. But they did, as do all things. And my greatest regret is that Jim and I, perhaps mostly I, did not keep up our close contact during the last several years of his life. I miss you, old pal. Maybe we will meet again. Webb Castor

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