My Tribute to Jim is a "throw-back" to our JHS years, when Jim lived behind my family in Southfield.  Unfortunately, Jim and I began to lose contact during our SHS years, after which I moved away and only saw him once more at our 20th class reunion.   I have the fondest of memories of our neighborhood friendship during those JHS years.  Neither of us was particularly self-assured (what teens are at this age?) or well-connected into organized sports, many of which we both loved--especially baseball.  So, Jim and I would make up and participate in our own personal and neighborhood sporting "events," where we actually developed some pretty fair athletic skills.  My favorite memory is of our baseball games in his driveway where we would use one of his heavy garage wooden doors as a backstop (I hope his dad knew of this).  We would actually stage 9-inning games where we took turns pitching to each other's team, using a hard rubber baseball that we could throw against the garage door.  In simulating our team's left-handed hitters (we were both right-handed), both of us actually became fairly good switch-hitters.  One of my funniest memories is when one of us would belt a homerun off of the neighbor's house across the street, which would often cause us to quickly break off our game and hide somewhere until the coast was clear (we may've even broken a window during one of these episodes, which I'd like to think we were accountable for).   In short, I'll always remember Jim during these insecure years as a real buddy who accepted me for who I was, and was always very kind, cordial and supportive.  I'll also fondly remember the elegant family dinners with his nice family to which he occasionally invited me.  So, Jim, I'll miss you Buddy . . . until such time as we can square off again in an after-life ballgame.