What to say about Jim? I’d like to say that Jim taught me how to teach, schooled me in fishing technique, showed me the proper way to make a roux. What else? That he improved my euchre game, revealed to me the insights of the Buddha, and, most generally, took me under his wing. I’d like to say all of those things, but just in the way that I’d also like to say that yesterday I won 324 million dollars in the lottery, my piercing blue eyes and strapping 6 foot 4 inch frame make me irresistible to super models, and I’ll be 36 years old forever. Now that we’re on the subject, I’d also like to say that my kids respect me, deans fear me, and God put me in the Northern Hemisphere just so I wouldn’t have to eat upside down.

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          I can think of exactly fourteen more things that I’d like to say, but they’re all about me and I’ve been told that I can have your undivided attention this evening only for the sake of honoring Jim. Where to begin? I’d like to begin by recognizing Jim’s long years of service to the department. But now we’re back to me again, and what I’d like. You see the problem. And, in any event, Jim’s long years of service were really no longer than years of anything else, unless you’re thinking he worked only during leap years. So seldom is Jim actually in the office, you could be forgiven for so thinking.

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          But even if his years of service were no longer than most years, it’s what he did with the two or three hours he’d spend in the office each week, year after year after year, that really deserves mention. I recall one especially productive morning when Jim, all on his own until he asked Lori for assistance, almost figured out how to prevent his keyboard from writing in all caps. Obviously, Jim had mistakenly pressed the caps lock key, but to his credit he kept himself calm for the first five or six minutes of all-cap production before giving into the panic to which lesser men, if any there be, would have more quickly succumbed.

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          I think I’ve now said enough about Jim’s service to remind all of you how acutely we’ve come to depend on him. Many of us see Jim as an extension of ourselves. For some, especially those of us who use urinals, this is not always welcome. But for others, it’s even less welcome. In fact, I wish had thought of some other metaphor to characterize the immense value that many of us, or at least a couple, attach to Jim.

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          But those who know Jim well, which is not easy to do unless you’re in the main office between 9 and 10 a.m. Mondays, some Wednesdays, and an occasional Friday, should appreciate the difficulty I face when trying to put in a few words all that Jim has meant to the department. For one thing, it’s hard for me to say nice things about Jim when I believe, with all my heart, that I’d prefer to hear nice things said about myself. For another, Jim hears nice things all the time from grad students upset with their TA assignments, faculty who’d rather not teach what and when the department needs them to teach, and staff who like nothing better than to hear Jim belly aching about life on the farm.

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          Perhaps I should look to the field of aesthetics to find just the right thing to say about Jim. Why aesthetics? Because Jim prides himself on knowing more about aesthetics than anyone else in the department not working on aesthetics. This is characteristic of Jim’s modesty, as those of you who have played dominoes with him well know. Following one of these games, I often overhear Jim’s graduate student victims exchanging understated remarks like these: “Jim’s a dick,” “I can’t believe he called her that,” and “Let’s go to the terrace and get shit faced.”

Yes – Jim has made a mark on all our lives. I’ve had some success with vinegar if you’re hoping to rid yourself of it. I, for one, have no interest in completely removing the mark Jim has left on me, but we’re now treading too closely again to metaphors that risk going very wrong. So I’ll end with this. Of all the many things I’d like to say about Jim, the one I’d most like to say is also one that I really can say. Jim has been my dear friend since I arrived here in 1993. We’ll miss you, Jim.