Jims Writings

I remember a late winter afternoon when I experienced a strange sense of being lost that I had not experienced before, nor have I since. I was seventeen, it was during my high school year in Pittsburgh, and I was visiting with my aunt, Katherine Waddell, her husband, Herb, and their two young daughters, Ruth and Dolores. Herb, a shipper at a Pittsburgh furniture warehouse, had visions of being a prosperous chicken farmer. So he had bought this small country place near Prospect, PA, some fifty miles north of Pittsburgh, where he raised something like fifty or a hundred white chickens. He spent the weekends and Wednesday night there, and stayed in Pittsburgh the other nights.

On several occasions I met him at his warehouse Friday night and drove up to Prospect with him for a weekend. We would drive back to Pittsburgh early Monday morning. On this particular weekend the ground was covered with several inches of snow. On Sunday afternoon I decided to take a hike through the fields and woods of that hilly countryside. Their big collie dog accompanied me.

I am sure I must have enjoyed walking through those unfamiliar woods. But it was an overcast day, it was late afternoon, and I was suddenly aware the light was fading. Also I had unaccountably lost my companion. I stepped up my pace through that particular patch of woods. It was getting dark in the woods, but I expected to come out at the top of a hill and look down on Herb and Katherine’s place and the warm and welcoming sight of lighted windows. Instead, as I emerged from the woods I beheld a broad scene utterly strange to me. I recognized nothing. There was the eerie, unreal light of dusk when the ground is covered with snow and the sky is shrouded in a thick overcast. Two or three houses in the distance had lighted windows; the only relief from the encompassing grayness. Night was falling fast. I felt utterly lost. I wondered if I would have to make my way to one of those houses and ask the way. But would they know the Waddells, recent newcomers to the area?

I chose to walk to a hill on my right. When I reached the top, I could look down and see Herb and Katherine’s cozy little house with its warm and welcoming light from the windows. Why I had that panicky feeling I don’t know. I was never really lost, of course. Even if I had to ask at a stranger’s house, I would certainly be back with my uncle and aunt that evening. But the feeling was so intense and tenacious that to this day it comes back to me when I am in the country amid woods and fields, there is snow on the ground, and the overcast sky gives the dusk a darkness and pervading grayness. It takes me back to that lonely moment on a winter twilight at the top of a strange hill.

A discourse delivered by James J. Geary
before the Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalist congregation
18 June 1995

Twice before, as some of you recall, I’ve talked to this group about my philosophy. The first talk was more than five years ago, the second some three years ago. Today I will talk about morality.

What? you might ask, is this old sinner doing talking about morality. Well I guess we are all sinners to an extent — depending on your definition of sin. I’m going to talk about a little different basis for morality, a different approach; a different reason to be moral. All the old bases, the old reasons, seem to be failing. What I have to say may seem a radical reason for moral behavior. But I think, to a certain extent, it’s a feeling we all have, instinctively.

What are my qualifications for talking on this subject? Well, for one thing, I’ve had a long life. Of course old age doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom. But I have seen much, have done quite a bit, and most importantly, I have thought a great deal. I have thought long and hard about being, the cosmos, infinity, the nature of life and death, and many of the other questions that philosophers and religious thinkers have wrestled with over the centuries. It seems to have been my nature to think about such questions since my early teens.

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by James Jewel Geary

"Rowing, Rowing, up to the post office," my father’s Christmas letter read, addressed to "Dear Jimson." The words recalled some happy times for both of us the previous summer.

My Pittsburgh family had rented a cottage at Buckeye Lake, some 25 miles east of Columbus, Ohio, for two weeks. It was 1925, and I was eleven years old. It was the first stay at a resort area I had ever had. During the planning I was very excited. I drew imaginative pictures of the trip in comic paper style, a series of boxes.

The day finally came, but it was dark and pouring rain when we arrived. I was exhausted from the long trip and the late hour. I think I was crying as I was led up to bed on the second floor of the cottage. It was not the wonderful place I had imagined.

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Some of my happiest times growing up were at "Dad West’s." Those times, brief as they were, introduced me to the life of a country gentleman. It is a life I have aspired to ever since.

Thomas West was an Englishman who had married a Virginia girl and had settled on an apple orchard on the side of a mountain just outside of Salem. As a wedding gift to the new couple, his father-in-law, George W. Koiner, who was the State of Virginia’s secretary of agriculture, had given them half of his beautiful and extensive orchard. When I knew Dad West he was in his 60s and his wife had long since died. Sharing his home with him was his "housekeeper," Jule Haffin.

Dad’s family had at one time mining interests in the western part of the United States, and when he was younger he managed them. Dad West lived a life that I thought was ideal. He had an independent income from England, so when his orchard failed to make money he didn’t have to be overly concerned. His was a life of leisure. He was a short stocky man with something of a military bearing, and I imagine was powerful as a young man in the West. But now he never walked if he could drive, he smoked a great deal, and I believe he was suffering from emphysema. He always wore a white linen suit. He drove into Salem each day for his mail and the Roanoke Times. He looked the part of the English gentleman.

Just when he became a friend of my family I don’t know, but it was a well-established association by the time I first became aware of things. He was always referred to as "Dad West" and was addressed as "Dad." Jule Haffin was equally a friend of the family. The two of them were very hospitable, and I have early memories of the family visiting there on Sunday afternoons or evenings.

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By James Jewel Geary

Tthis is my earliest best friend, my collie, Brook, who was given to me when I was about six by my Aunt Ruth Jewel (later Ruth Boetcher). He was just a puppy, and I remember holding him on my lap while sitting on the front steps of the house at Belleville Road until he fell asleep. When I first saw him I was sick in bed, and I was delighted at the sight. He was part registered South American collie and part non-registered American collie. We were inseparable for the next eight years. He was killed while chasing a street car that I was on by a motorist who sped down the wrong side of the street. It must have been deliberate.

July 2007 -My latest canine companion is Katie, an almost four-year-old Golden Retriever-Husky mix. You can read about Katie.

Having just discovered that I could have a second domain name with my 1and1 hosting account, I decided on jims-writings.com for my husband. Having also just learned how to install and setup WordPress – a blogging software – I decided to make this a blog so family and friends could add comments if they were so inclined.

Over the years, my husband, Jim Geary, has written long articles and short sketches on many subjects, family members, friends, things he likes to do, places We’ve been. This is a place to share his writings with his daughters and grandchildren, other family members and friends.

We belong to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harrisonburg Virginia and Jim has, on occasion presented “sermons/talks” to the Fellowship. While the newer ones are posted on our church website, older ones will be included here.