In Memoriam: Jim Sosna 1951-2010
My friend Jim had a much better heart than lungs. In fact, he was as generous and big-hearted as any person I've ever known. He was always thinking of others and what he could do for them. His lungs, on the other hand were always a hindrance, interfering with, but not preventing, his enjoyment of life. In spite of those lungs and his incessant need to cough, his ready smile and helping hand stand out in my memory of him.
I met Jim around 40 years ago when he was a student and I a long-haired hippy professor at Shippensburg State College (now University). Jim came into my office to discuss his ideas for a computer dating project that he was working on with another faculty member. I remember his politeness and easy laugh as well as his problem solving skills.
Jim and I crossed paths again in 1988 when I was on sabbatical leave in Cape May. My wife Cathy and I were avid aerobicizers and so was Jim's wife Linda, whom we met at Body Mechanix, our local workout parlor. Through Linda, we met Jim and went out on his famous power boat for some water skiing, at which I proved totally inept. The four of us established a relationship back then that remained strong through the years. Whenever Cathy and I would visit the Cape May area, we would stop at Linda and Jim's to say hello and catch up on what was happening in our lives.
By the time we moved to Cape May Beach in 1995, we were old friends. Jim was a very handy guy and was able to help us with all kinds of large and small projects around the house. On my part, I was able to use my computer knowledge to help Jim when he was stuck on some electronic issue. We developed two major common interests: weather and fishing. Jim was a weather expert and I was always a neophyte. We competed to see who could be the worse fisherman.
Our mutual concern about weather and fishing came through Cathy's idea to buy our power boat, Anaerobic, in the fall of 1996. Jim took us out on his boat on Labor Day to teach us some basics of seamanship and to welcome us to the boating community. I started to fish that fall and also started to take a very serious interest in the weather, and especially, the marine forecast. I remember many, many phone calls when Jim and I mulled over the weather and tried to make the right decision about heading out to fish in his boat or ours.
I caught my first keeper striped bass on Jim's boat in October, 1997. Jim, having had a rough night before the fishing trip, was kind enough to supply chum for me as I hooked the fish. I thought my line was caught on the bottom and was trying futilely to cut my line when Jim saw the striper jump and yelled at me to reel it in. After Jim netted the fish, he collapsed into a spasm of coughing, as he always did when the adrenaline rush from a good fish triggered his asthma. Jim was as proud of that fish as I was, since it was the first keeper striper caught on his boat. Later, when Jim had introduced me to his friend Paula, I started to learn how to recognize when I had a fish on the line. Jim caught his first keeper striper on my boat in November, 1998.
One of Jim's best features was his ability to keep up with people's lives by way of frequent phone calls. During those calls he often kept us updated on his other friends, so he was the nexus of information for a community of friends and acquaintances. Jim was the most avid reader of my online journals, blog, and other websites, and was always aware of where I was and what I was doing. I found myself at times writing things on FaceBook or in my journal specifically directed at Jim because I knew that he would be reading it. Often, as soon as I posted some information on the Internet, the phone would ring and Jim would make some comment about what I had just written.
Jim and I often used each other as a surrogate weather radar. Sometimes, when he was on the beach or out kayaking, he would give me a call and ask me if a T-storm cell that he saw in the distance was heading his way. On the day that Cathy and I left our winter residence in Naples, Florida in March 2008, there was a huge weather front moving across central and northern Florida. There were tornado watches all over our route, so we talked with Jim several times during our morning drive to get his best advice on where to spend the night. He suggested that we stop in the Orlando area because he thought that tornadoes would hit Daytona Beach and places north. We stayed in Kissimmee/St. Cloud and got T-storms overnight; however, Daytona Beach was ravaged with tornadoes.
The two of us were more interested in the process of fishing than the end result; we would rather fish where we wanted to be than where the fish were. He loved the Cape May Rips and always tried to get me to pilot my boat near the nasty rip on Prissywick Shoal. He would chuckle at my fear of that unpredictable stretch of water. One time, I had to turn the boat around on the face of a huge breaking wave to barely escape being swamped or capsized. Jim laughed.
I will miss my friend Jim, but I treasure the time I had with him and all of the memories. He enriched my life.
