Jackie-san is Gone

So a guy I lived with my second year of college died this week.  Fifty-four, had a massive coronary.  Poof – gone!  I hope he’d walked through the gates of enlightenment but I’m doubten her (Brockville speak).  Probably back for another 5 or 10 or 20,000 lifetimes according to those whacky Hindu hijinks or who knows, maybe just worm food.  Irrespective of ones philosophical beliefs he’s certainly shipped out of this dimension – Gonedy! (more Brockville speak with a little phonetic Hindu twist).

We lived together in a three-bedroom dump in “Da Get-toe” on Morissette off of Merivale in Ottawa.  Funny the things you remember.  One was a yearlong competition.  The rules were simple.  When you went to the can at night, you kept the lights off and sat down to pee.  Once seated you flicked on the light.  The object was to kill as many cockroaches as possible as they scattered in the light.  Apparently I wasn’t much of a Buddhist or Tolstoyan in college.  Kevin, our third roomy held the lofty record of eleven in a single seating by years-end.

Jack was a really solid guy.  He was going to school to study Law and Security in hopes of becoming a cop.  Boy was he living with the wrong dudes.  Anyway, he never became a policeman and I hope he was good with that.  The last time I spoke with him was about five years back.  He was married to a girl I went to high school with and they had a couple of boys.  Life seemed good.

 

I can’t imagine that he’s gone.

I better get busy – time’s short!