John Layh

Back in the summer of 1968, I was a bootcamper at the USN training facility in San Diego. Every day planes would fly over our parade ground & every day I would wish that I was back home in Dayton with my friends. The words of a song that Jack and his brother used to sing at the Alley Door, a song that was known to all of us youngsters back then, would echo in my head. I was 22 years old chronologically but still a ten-year-old kid between the ears. I wrote to another friend to ask Jack if he would send me the words to the song, which Jack did. Over five decades later, I still remember that act of kindness. And five decades later, that ten-year-old kid is still in my seven decades and some old body.

When I got out of the USN in 1972, I looked for Jack. Someone told me that he was running a clinic helping lost souls who, for whatever reason, had lost their way cognitively or psychologically. I could easily have been one of those folks. Maybe I still am. Every day I think of when I was a kid, some ten or so minutes ago. And in some ways I have Jack to thank for that.

One of the curses of aging, a process that ain't for wimps, as my psychologist buddy Doc Bob Gordon used to say, is that people from our lives begin to disappear until it's our turn to take the eternal slumber. So for me, yes, Jack's passing is another marker on that road. But I remind myself that Jack is still here, just not as well organized. Every photon that bounced off his smile still skitters through the universe. Every vibration of his voice still moves a molecule somewhere. Every touch of his warmth and friendship still ripples through time and space. And every atom of his being is still here, part of the universe from which we spring. Thus I remember Jack and his continued presence.