Since he doesn't love us enough to remain one of our leaders (my people are naturally passive-aggressive), it is time we m/a/k/e/ h/i/m/ p/a/y/ express our gratitude by telling our favorite Jim stories on the occasion of his retirement.

Here's mine, tho it is perhaps more on me and his wife than him.

I met Jim online (GEnie) in the middle of 1993 (I can never mention the old GEnie without tipping my hat to the late great Tom Perry). I additionally got involved with a online Heinlein fan group elsewhere (Prodigy) in early 1992.

One of the people I got involved with on that Heinlein group was a lady named Audrey. A very Heinlein Femme kind of gal. So as things progressed, with these multiple but separate relationships of mine, eventually it got to the point where I invited Jim to a lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Sacramento (El Toritos on Arden, for those interested in erecting a plaque) where several members of the Heinlein Forum would be meeting. WJake Keaton and John Tilden were visiting from back east to go skiiing in the Sierras.

It was a very nice lunch. Didn't think much about it, however --just a pleasant sojourn with some Heinlein friends. No doubt many of you have had similar. Audrey pumped me about my soon to be first in-person meeting with my eventual wife. Jim became part of the Heinlein Forum.

Fast forward to the theatrical release of _Starship Troopers_. In the meantime, I'd gotten married to that Heinlein Femme from that group (and still happily so). She's done okay in the Heinlein world since, I think. We made arrangments with Jim to see the movie together at a local multiplex and have dinner afterwards.

We show up. Jim shows up with a date. Now, understand, I'm exceptionally good with voices but not so hot with faces. My wife will tell you, to her exasperation, that I will make her stop a movie until I figure out who that guy who is speaking is, even tho he looks nothing like the last time I saw him.

Soooo, the lady says nothing when we meet her, but smiles and nods. We pay for our tickets, and get ready to go into the theater. I lean over to my wife and say "You know, she looks a lot like Audrey". The lady overhears me, and gives me the most withering glare (I swear; I might not be good with faces, but I would have gotten it from that look, which I'd seen before --and so have you, if you've known Audrey for any length of time. . . ) and says something reasonably close to "I AM Audrey, you doofus!".

Oh.

Fast forward again, and I'm reading from _Glory Road_ at their wedding. I got even for the glare with redheaded twins.

I've really had no serious qualms about Jim's essential good sense on important matters after that, however much muttering there may be in the waypoints.

So, okay, he says he's retiring from leadership. I don't make predictions. I'm too cautious for that --a fact he has sometimes beat me with. But I will opine that a man who has _Glory Road_ read at his wedding only retires once, the final time in all human affairs.


*I'm reminded that Cincinattus reborn, Geo (and yes, he signed his name that way often, look it up) Washington, retired from public life, only to be lured back again a few years later. . . pissing and moaning about the likely damage to his reputation, and the slings and arrows of previous service, but doing his duty.

That's a really nice story - I did not remember that you forgot who I was at the movie, so do not stress over that - I do remember your cyber carrots though...and that one post on the old Prodigy board where I was really harder on you than I should have been.
In any case this is probably mostly my fault - I am retiring and dragging him out to the East coast which is many thousands of miles closer to my family and a much better place for the twins. (Not red-headed). I will have to think a long time about which "Jim story" to tell here.....

Actually to be honest I always had mixed feelings about Glory Road at the Wedding

Oh, there are (not to my way of thinking, but that's a different subject) femme objections to GR, but that particular passage is very optimistic and unobjectionable on that score.

In some ways I like it extra special because Jim tends to specialize in the "we're all f***ed" line of analysis, right before he pulls the chestnuts out of the fire. So it shows what I usually refer to as the "clap so Tinkerbell can live" essential nature at his core that he denies vehemently and regularly on one hand, and yet lives in the important respects on the other.

And he can give me all the s**t he cares to for that analysis of 17 years acquaintance, but there it is.

Oh, and Sweetie/Lioness --we're even on the forgetting, as I have no rememberance of what you're talking about on giving me hell online. . .

Eh, okay, strawberry blondes --but if I hunted I bet I could come up with their birth announcements where Jim claimed them as redheads. . .

You know, Jim, it's like Tony Soprano said, "Kid, there's no retiring from This Thing of Ours."

I'm too sleepy right now to do a proper tribute, but I'd like to say a thing or two before hitting the sack. I first encountered Jim online on the old Heinlein discussion boards, where I was fairly active in the early 90s. Soon after the World Wide Web became widely accessible, I came across his Site:RAH. At the time, around 1995, his content was already vastly superior and more useful than anything else online Heinlein-related. I badgered Jim via email from time to time to keep adding content, and I'm confident he continued to do so over time and to publish the Hugo-deserving RAH:ARC solely because of my urging.

Anyway, Jim was never anything but unfailingly cordial in our email exchanges (No, really), and I obviously had no clue just how difficult it must have been for Jim to maintain his Heinlein labor of love, along with making a living, raising kids, etc. etc. We all know the story by now of the superhuman effort behind the Centennial. Jim did not do this all on his own, but, truly, without Jim where would this "Heinlein Community" be now?

Did Jim do all this because of a sense of obligation to Robert Heinlein? The man's dead. Besides, one of the reasons I've always felt an affinity to Jim is because of his ambivalent (and healthy) attitude toward Heinlein. He didn't see Heinlein as a quasi-religious leader or a political guru or a lifestyle coach. He saw Heinlein as an important American author who was beloved by a lot of "normal" people, and whose legacy was in danger of being hijacked by nuts - for lack of a better term.

When I finally met Jim at the Centennial, I asked him if I could snap a photo. He said, "Sure. You want me to wear The Hat?"

The Hat?, I thought. What I said was "Certainly!"

Well, the guy did get me to travel 6500 miles to attend a little birthday bash, not to mention influencing me to decide that I was going to be a Heinlein scholar one day.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Except to concur with one point - he seems awfully lousy at retiring.

Picture? Did somebody say pictures?

Pictures!

"There are so many things I MUST do that I never get to what I WANT to do..." (so saith Robert Heinlein, and so it is). Sorry for showing up late, but this is the first fifteen minutes I've had free in -- well, a long time.

It's hard to think of Jim retiring, because he's always been a fixture in this Heinlein community -- in fact, this Heinlein community is in no small part his creation, and I think of it as Jim's living legacy.

Certainly what exists now is very different from the discussion groups etc. that went before. The other major one that existed when I joined the online Heinlein community in 1997 went on to become the Heinlein Society, and we all know how that turned out. I think Jim could point with pride to the fact that in order to pull up its socks, the Heinlein Society had to join this community and not the other way around. Not a particular dig at the Society (hey, I am the founder of that Society), just a reflection of the facts. With Jim's projects, running from ARC to Centennial to Nexus, the Heinlein community moved here.

If it must be, then it must -- but we are those who Will Not Forget.

Prosit, Jim and Audrey. I could say Connecticut will be punishment enough, but you've lived in Sacramento for mumblety-mumble years so I think punishment has already been meted enow.

All Heinlein fans are (or should be) grateful to Jim for his long endeavors for the Heinlein heritage.

This dance of the Heinlein Society and the Nexus reminds me of Durant, after losing control of his General Motors, a few years later leveraged Chevrolet's independent success to regain control of General Motors.

Connecticut? What did they do to deserve that?