James Lalas

1937 - 2025

James Lalas
Traverse City, Michigan
01/19/1937 - 08/19/2025
A few days ago, my life's journey concluded on August 19, 2025. I had reached the age when people stopped asking and just automatically carbon dated me.
The joy of my life was Carolyn, my wife and my very best friend. We met in Psychology class in college where she convinced me that a pasty containing carrots was not really a pasty.
I had immense pleasure in watching my children, Evans and his wife Lori, Terri and her husband Don and Kristi and her husband Craig demonstrate their loving and big hearts.
I'm rooting for my Grandsons, Jeff and his wife Andrea, Tyler and his wife Jana, Brent and his wife Jessica and Devin to achieve their dreams.
I'm hoping that Charlotte, Eleanor, Jakoba, Tyce and Tucker, my Great Grandchildren, will be able to live in a world friendlier than it is now.
I see no need to list diplomas, degrees, awards and achievements. It is only important that I know what I did and what I did not do.
I was never much of a joiner of organizations and clubs, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the Benzie Civility Group. This was an exceptional, intelligent and thought-provoking gathering of warm souls. Even when I offered my revelation that the State of Indiana existed for the sole purpose of keeping Lake Michigan from flooding Kentucky, they still treated me with civility!
I was fortunate to have spent most of my adult life teaching and coaching Michigan high school students from the Detroit Metro area, the Upper Peninsula and Frankfort in Benzie County. Every single student I had in class and the athletic arena, in their own unique way and style, generously enriched my life. Thank you. All of you reinforced my belief that it is so much more
important to know who a person is, than to know what a person is.
I can honestly write that I have only three regrets: (1) In my life, I was unable to figure out how to slam a revolving door, and make a successful soup sandwich. (2) As hard as I tried and searched, I never located, on the banks of the Betsy River, that colony of frogs that knits wool bikinis. (3) I did not live long enough to see the next Hollywood produced pirate movie where a director would have the courage to have a seagull sitting on the pirate's shoulder and a not a parrot!
Finally, if there is one life-acquired wisdom that I could pass on from my life's journey, it would be this: each new day in our lives comes with the opportunity to draw another part of our lives.
Eventually, for all of us, that day will come when like a child's number and lines picture book, we will connect the last number to the last line. Our life picture will be completed. A short time ago, I connected the last number to the last line; I finished my picture for all to see. What will your picture be?
In your life's journey, may the road rise to meet you and the wind be always at your back.
Funeral services will be held on September 20, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. at the First Congregational Church of Frankfort located at 431 Forest Avenue, Frankfort, MI. Visitation will be held at the church the morning of the funeral at 10:00 a.m., with a luncheon following the service. Funeral arrangements will be handled by the Jowett Family Funeral Home & Cremation Service
of Benzonia.