Jack Hitt

Arcata lost a proud native son and good citizen this week with the death of Jack Hitt on March 25, 2004.

Jack was born September 14, 1940, in Arcata and grew up next to the machine shop at 10th and I. He went to local schools, played saxophone in the band, was a Boy Scout, and graduated from Arcata High in 1958. After academic work at Humboldt, he spread his wings and went east where he took training and worked as an emergency medical tech on an ambulance crew in New York and in Kansas City. Jack was always reassuring in an emergency, maintaining a calm demeanor, knowing just where to press to staunch the flow.

Back in Arcata, he took his experience in emergency services to the volunteer fire department. Jack and his sister Mary opened the Lemon Tree, a gallery-slash-coffee house on 10th street between the back of Delux Cleaners and Seeley and Titlow’s hay barn, in the space where the Charlie McDaniel’s Co-op is now. This business was a bit ahead of its time but was a clue to Jack’s abiding interest in bringing people together in places where conversations could happen. He would try another coffee house in the next decade, this one in the ground floor of the Hotel Arcata, but it too was not to last.

Jack’s natural affinity was for books, and in the mid ‘60s he and business partner, Jerry Gorsline, opened The Bookstore in the old Tatman’s Bakery storefront in Northtown. The Bookstore, later re-christened Northtown Books, to distinguish it from the campus bookstore, held a vital place in that bustling commercial neighborhood, giving a focus to a growing artistic and intellectual community that was growing out from the college and into the town.

When in the Spring of 1968 the students went on strike to protest the war in Vietnam, Jack and Jerry closed the cash register and opened the store to the anti-war work, and for weeks the store was strike headquarters. Such a selfless act was typical of Jack’s commitment to his community. He always acted locally, always thought globally, was always more generous, more tolerant, more appreciative than anyone else you knew. He studied every question carefully and when he took a stand you knew he was standing on the steady benchmark of the high moral ground.

The store moved to its current location downtown but kept its Northtown name, Jack’s subtle way of fudging the edges of things. This space had more room for stock, was more in the thick of things and had an apartment above. After he was well established in this new location, another new bookstore opened on the plaza and folks came in to assert their loyalty to Northtown. Jack encouraged them to shop at the new store. “A town can’t have too many bookstores,” he would say.

Jack never let himself become an actual publisher, but over the years he provided plenty of encouragement to writers and printers and publishers. Space was made available to assemble chapbooks, host book-signings, post announcements, take messages and in a million little ways foster the literary, the arts and the life of ideas. Mostly he was interested in people, and if he was in a position to do some good for someone, he did it. He was full of wonder and always ready to embrace the new. One of the first to get an internet hookup, others quickly got one in order to email Jack.

When Jack was ready to stop running the bookstore, he sold it to longtime employees; it mattered that the store keep to its independent ways, and Jack knew that Art and Barbara would be able to do that. Even after he sold the store, he’d fill in behind the counter on occasion, smoothing the transition and keeping in touch with the customers. He had a prodigious memory, and kept track of it all in a breast pocket note-tablet. He would have been a great president or a benevolent king. His good spirit is everywhere alive in our town. Nobody ever had a better friend; indeed, Jack is the marker by which the best of friendships are measured.

Jack leaves his father, George Hitt; sisters, Mary Anderson and Ann Hitt; brother, Don Hitt and Don’s wife Joan; many nieces and nephews; and a legion of loving friends in Arcata and around the world.

A Eulogy will be held at the Arcata Veteran’s Hall on April 3, between 2:00 and 5:00 p.m.

Arrangements are under the direction of Pierce Mortuary Chapels/Paul’s Chapel, Arcata.

Please sign the guestbook at www.times-standard.com, click on obituaries.