A close friend of my family, Jim Hallman, died on Saturday at the age of 74. I’d known him since I knew anyone, from when my family moved from New Jersey to Columbus, Ohio in 1980 or so, and always knew him as a joyous, very funny man—one of the few people I’ve known who I’d consider applying the description “jolly,” although his sense of humor welcomely ran a little crass for that term. My earliest memories of him are the new jokes he’d always have to tell. He was a handy gentleman, as well, and worked as an apartment maintenance man long after he retired—I suppose just because he figured there was work there for him to do. Idle hands and all. His wife is my mom’s best friend.

I got to see him over the summer. He was looking hale and hearty and was out to visit one of his children in St. Louis. I was in town to work on my mom’s house to get it ready to sell. He was impressed with my drywall repair skills that’d improved quite a bit since I was in high school. Back then, I remember him commenting wryly, “Hell, most guys your age wouldn’t've even tried to fix it!” He meant it and I took it as a genuine compliment, although we both silently acknowledged that the patch under discussion looked like garbage. He was a genuinely decent man. While visiting, he got up on a chair to replace a ceiling fan. That weekend, he took my sister, my mother, a friend of mine, and me out to dinner along with his own very large family and we all had a good time. I had no idea he was in any way sick. Had no idea that would be the last time I’d ever see him. I think he wanted it that way, and that’s all right with me. I’ll always remember him as I always knew him.

I’m going to try to make it to Columbus for his memorial this weekend. It’s very hard for me to know what to say to people when they’re dealing with an enormous loss like this, although I’ve found this short essay, What to Say and Not to Say to the Grieving, by Donald Sensing helpful in the past. (DS’s essays have become hard to find as he’s changed websites, but the listing is there in plain sight here.)

My nephew turns 3 on St. Patrick’s Day, this coming Saturday. I was looking around on the intertubes for a good present for him. I had in mind something like the Soccer Edge, a toy every person my age probably played with when we were kids. The idea was simple, a spike that screws into the ground, connected by a bungee cord to a net that you can put a soccer ball in. You kick the ball and it springs back to you so you can kick it again.

I found something that looks even cooler, the Kika Flik, a little springboard that you stomp on to lob a ball up at you. So kids start out catching the ball and later on they can use it to pop up wiffle balls to thwack. Sounds like fun. Little dude’s starting t-ball this season.