My Uncle passed away last Wednesday morning. Thursday we drove the 9 hours to Montana, Friday was his memorial, and the weekend was dedicated to helping tidy my aunt’s property.
Jim Scott was an inspiration for this adventure. He was an example of non-traditional twenties turning into a storied and fruitful career. I knew my uncle as the classiest professor. He always wore a suit and tie and was the dean of classics at the University of Montana. Years later I learned his dress-shirt sleeves covered the tattoos of his rebellious days when he worked for a traveling circus as a carnie. Jim performed as a sword swallower with the circus in the summers while he finished his masters in Latin at the University of Michigan. He found the U of Montana while hopping a train from his hometown Chicago to Seattle where he was working on his Ph.D at UW. He continued to ride the rails even while acting as a suit-and-tie professor.
Jim was also the first adult to talk to a kid like an adult. He asked grown-up questions, cared about our answer, never patronized (even when we were certainly stupid kids) and genuinely engaged with us as early as I can remember.
This week I was excited to write about the re-wiring of Scooter, with a new battery, new battery charger, solar panels, improved switches, relays and the whole nine yards, but that update will be a few days delayed.
I’m sorry to the followers who were hyped for their Tuesday morning boat update, and it’ll be in your inbox shortly. In the meantime, here’s my favorite Jim story:
Jim Scott, fresh out of his Ph.D at the University of Washington applied for a teaching gig in Chicago, at Northwestern. After the day-long interview, the committee took the prospective hire out for drinks in downtown Chicago to a blues bar. Anyone who left before midnight was nixed from the list. Midnight to two a.m. had a good shot, and anyone who closed down the bar became the frontrunner. The idea was recognizing that they may be at the best jazz bar in the world that night, and going home to be well-rested for a flight was a huge disservice to themselves.
So years later, Jim implemented his version of the test at the U of M. He’d drive the prospective professor north from Missoula, through Arlee, toward Saint Ignatius, Montana. This gave him an hour each way to talk and vet the interviewee. Coming over the Arlee hill, the Mission Mountains erupt. Snow-covered and towering over the valley.
In Jim’s words “if their jaw didn’t hit the floorboard, the drive home didn’t matter.”
Also sorry for the wall of text, we brought the laptop but not the charger so here’s my attempt at a weekly update with the remaining 6% of Tay’s battery life.
-Hank