Jim was a good friend in HS, and, over the years, although separated by geography, he in Philadelphia and me in Pittsburgh, Bel Air, MD (Baltimore) and FL, we made it a point to get together from time to time.  Photos attached. I was just one of Jim’s many friends.  He was such a great guy, everyone liked him.  Lloyd Armstrong, who lived just around the corner from Jim’s Cochran Rd. home, was probably his longest and closest.  Jim was very low key and easy to get to know and I never saw him get upset about anything or anyone. Before some of the fun stories from the early years, to better appreciate something of Jim’s true character and why he was special to me, let me fast forward from HS days to 1986 when my wife, Georgeann, suddenly passed away while we were living in Bel Air.  For weeks after her passing Jim called me from time to time just to chat and check if my 4 girls and I were ok.  I cannot tell you how much those calls meant.  Jim was a special kind of friend! On the lighter side, a few years earlier Jim was in town and stopped by to show me the car he had purchased.  Now he was never one to show off a new hot car, so I assumed it was a ’58 Chevy or some other vintage pair of wheels from our era.  Wasn’t I surprised when Jim pulled up honking in an old Rolls Royce!  Don’t remember where he got it or how long he kept it but it was just like Jim to surface with the unexpected. On another occasion we visited with Jim in Philadelphia and he was anxious to show me his “new”, (at the time), gadget.  He said he had just purchased an invisible fence for his Irish Setter.  So he switched it on and said, “watch this”!  Well if you have ever been around an Irish Setter you know they are a little crazy – strike the word little.  Jim opened the door and the Setter bolted across the lawn like a rocket and broke through the invisible fence with a jerk of his head at the highest point of intensity and took off into the neighborhood.  It took Jim and me 2 hours to corner him and get a leash on his collar.  Nice fence Jim! When I was in MD and Jim in Philadelphia, we met from time to time at a golf course and played for a few nickels.  Jim had this awful looking self-taught low sweeping hook that always seemed to go around the trouble and find the fairways and greens.  Not sure how he controlled it but the result was he won most of the nickels.  I always told him not to spend them as I was coming for him.  Never did win them back so now the incentive is to be half the guy he was to try to get up there and win back some of those nickels I expect he’s still holding – practicing hitting a hook, Jim. During HS in addition to spending time doing things guys did who couldn’t get dates, we played cards, went bowling at Bowling City, played a little tennis and some basketball at the MtL Park courts.   One weekend night when I had one of my rare dates, Jim and the “guys” decided we should go bowling.  When I said I couldn’t because I had a date, Jim leaned on me pretty hard to cancel the date and go bowling with the guys.  You could only resist Jim for so long so I finally gave in and called my date and made up some lame excuse as to why I had to cancel.  At the bowling alley, bowling right next to us was, of course, my date’s sister!  Needless to say, that was my last date with my former date and over the years, whenever I see her she still reminds me of what a &$%*$@? I am – all your fault Jim!  Anyway, we formed a pickup basketball team with Bruce Harris, Lloyd Armstrong, Jim a couple of other classmates (the memory is a challenge) and Jim Slavish from South Catholic.  Now none of us were good enough to make the varsity but we were at least decent intramural players.  So for kicks we entered a couple of competitions.  First we needed uniforms and since we didn’t have the money to buy anything respectable, and we didn’t think the refs would go for skins vs. shirts, with us as the all time skins, everyone came up with a ratty t-shirt and my Mother dyed them in a kitchen pot.  They came out some awful shade of early tye dyed blue.  We all looked somewhat alike so we entered a tournament in Bethel or Baldwin – there goes the memory again.  So for our first game, out trotted the Baldwin HS Varsity, looking cool with their color coordinated uniforms and especially their high Jumpin’ socks!  They took one look at us and I’m sure thought we were the ball boys.  They went through their pre-game drills lookin’ sharp and well coached, and so we decided to lineup and do some layups – even made some!  Just wanted to give them something to think about.  So this long story doesn’t get any longer – we WON!  The 2 Jims were awesome – Slavish for dropping them in from the corners and McCaslin for his rebounding put backs and defense.  JM was expert at positioning for rebounds and slyly grabbing the taller opponents shorts, unnoticed by the referee, so he couldn’t jump, giving Jim an easy rebound. What happened in the next round would have been embarrassing except we never had a chance, but thought we did, as our next opponent was “The Clowns” and if we could beat the Baldwin Varsity Jim and I reasoned, why should we expect to have trouble with “The Clowns”?  The reason – “The Clowns” were made up of the best senior HS players in the WPIAL that year, including classmate Bob Bennett.  With JM our tallest player at 6’ or 6’ 1” it didn’t matter as he had to reach up to tug on the shorts of guys like Bennett at 6’ 8” or another 6’ 8” player named Brown from Midland HS and then I think Fleming Reynolds from Fifth Ave. HS (one of the best to ever come out of the City League) and more and more and more.  Final score – 99 – 33, Clowns won going away. The summer following graduation we decided to give basketball another go for one last hurrah.  We entered the MtL Summer League and early on came up against the MtL Varsity for the following year.  Of course not one of us would have ever made that team and our only advantage was we were a year or so older and guys like Jim just a little more cunning.  To make it even more fun, the referee that night was Mr. Black – the Varsity Head Coach.  Well our “big man”, Jim McCaslin, out foxed them all night with great positioning and a few extra curricular “tugs”, and Jim Slavish peppered them from the corners, and, WE WON!  That was our last hurrah but I always wondered what it was like for the MtL players to be part of Mr. Black’s post game review.  Jim McCaslin was clearly our MVP! We never played again as a team and Jim went to U. of Maryland on a scholarship for diving (not to collect fouls, although he was pretty good at that too), and then served in the Air Force and Reserves and National Guard retiring as a Lt. Colonel, married his college sweetheart and fathered 2 daughters, Heather and Katie – Katie was a swimmer at Grove City College.  Jim was a good athlete and a natural at almost anything he tried.  Few know that he was a highly ranked squash player – something he took up later in life.  My greatest regret is after attending his Dad’s funeral and his daughter Heather’s wedding that I didn’t find out about his passing until now so was unable to personally pay my respects – so this is the best I can do.  Jim, yours was a life well lived – everyone who knew you has lost a special friend.  Thanks for being mine.  RIP George