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Showing Original Post only (View all)Devastated to report the passing of JackpineRadical [View all]
I met Jim Peterson (JackpineRadical) through DU at least 13 years ago. We live about an hour and a half apart, but close enough to show up at the same Democratic party events regularly and to stay in touch off of DU as well. Even so, I knew him but not so well as I would have liked. He was as amazing in person as he was on DU. He was a Vietnam vet. He was a psychiatrist who spent a good deal of his life working with people charged with crimes and those convicted in prison. Even though he was retired now, he worked when he wanted, taking on psych evals when when a friend in the legal world sought his expertise and testimony. He understood what motivated people to do good things as much as he understood what motivated them to do terrible things. He dedicated himself to making the world a better place by going places few of us would be willing to tread.
His heart was enormous. His mind, which he shared with so many here, was fascinating. His big smile was ever-present and slightly mischievous. His skill for mocking stupidity through understatement and sarcasm were beyond anything I've ever seen. He loved sharing his letters to the editor with me and I loved reading them. He tested people with his crazy sharp wit. If you got it, if you did that double take, if you laughed, he was a fast friend. He and his wife, my husband MadAsHell and I stayed late at several Dem dinners talking about topics too numerous to count and would have stayed til dawn if they didn't start shutting off the lights.
The last couple of years we hadn't seen much of each other. My life got crazy and I didn't end up going his direction as much as I used to. But we did check in on DU with each other here and there.
When that genie grants my wish to have dinner with any 12 people of my choosing all through time, Jim will be there at my side.
I will miss you, my dear friend Jackpine. Rest in peace, Jim.
Jim passed Thursday evening, June 11th. There will be a memorial service for him on June 27th. Anyone who would like to express their sympathy can do so through this funeral home page for Jim.
http://www.pedersonvolker.com/obituary.phtml/E780EA29/james_m_peterson/
I will also share the link to this post with his widow, Carla.
Edited to add this in tribute to Jim - in his own words...
25 Random things about me (Jackpine Radical)
January 27, 2009 at 7:31pm
1. I get a great deal of satisfaction out of playing with a tractor.
2. I have had peak experiences at various times since I was a small child. These events have always happened when I was in contact with natural things, and have involved a sense of unity pervading the universe and incorporating melike being part of a fractal design in which small elements are replicated all the way up.
3. My wife is trying to convince me that my memory is getting bad but she is wrong.
4. I would probably have accomplished more in life if I could have focused all my attention in some narrow area instead of being interested in everything.
5. I think my nervous system came pre-wired for rural life. Living in cities for too long is not good for me. Too much aversive stimulation (random, clanging ugly noises, garish flashing lights, masses of people) and too little beauty (sunsets, sunlight sparkling on water, wind in the trees, bird and animal sounds and flashes of movement). In the city, my senses shut down, limiting my awareness of my surroundings; in the country, my awareness of my surroundings expands to absorb the spiritual nourishment of the natural world.
6. My wife is trying to convince me that my memory is getting bad but she is wrong.
7. I lived most of my life in a time before personal computers, used to write my college papers on a manual typewriter, and analyzed my PhD dissertation data on a computer that filled an entire building but had less computing capacity than the Macbook in my lap right now.
8. I was about 50 when the Internet first became available to me on a very slow (2400 baud) phone connection in 1994. We got wireless broadband at home in 2005. Now, I can hardly remember what life was like before broadband.
9. Within the past year I have made contact with two branches of my family that I hardly knew existed. One branch lives in northern Saskatchewan, and the other in Idaho and Washington State. I now have pictures of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, who were born in Denmark in the 1840's.
10. If I were able to eliminate one kind of thing from the Earth, I would have a lot of trouble deciding what should go: deerflies, black mold, or Republicans.
11. I have too many books, too many papers, and too many tractors.
12. I have a persistent feeling that I should be writing something significant, but I don't know what it is.
13. I wish there were a way to train box elder bugs to kill Japanese beetles and then commit suicide.
14. I like hats.
15. I can't imagine why anybody would bother to learn the names of all the major-league baseball players. Not even the names of all the players on one team.
16. I really don't understand football. It seems like it would be a lot easier on everybody if they gave each team a ball.
17. My wife is trying to convince me that my memory is getting bad but she is wrong.
18. I think there should be a 12-step program for Internet addicts. There should also be 3-step groups for people with Attention Deficit Disorder. And 47-step groups for obsessive-compulsives.
19. I still have the snow shoes I used in high school, and they are still in good shape (although I am not).
20. I have discovered that I am property. My main roles in life involve serving as doorperson and treat provider for a large orange dog.
21. I look at the future with a strange mix of fear for what might be (people of my generation grew up hearing the horror stories of the Depression years from our parents) and of hope for what could be. I think we are at one of those turning points in history. The right choice will lead to a path of appropriate technology and spiritual metamorphosis. The other choice will lead to unimaginable ruin, and maybe another mass extinction of species.
22. What are you supposed to do with all those little wall-wart transformers that you accumulate over the years? It seems wrong to just throw them out, even if you don't know what they will fit, and probably no longer own the devices they came with.
23. Irma Bombeck once defined a calorie as a measure of the delectability of food. She was right.
24. Gus often wants to go out and bark at things we cannot see. I sometimes wonder if he is hallucinating. Maybe we have a seriously psychotic dog on our hands. How would we know?
25. My nose seldom itches except when I am trying to meditate.