Jack and Beulah Scott were among my first friends when I moved to Seymour nearly 25 years ago.
Their daughter Jill introduced us that first week on the job. She and I had worked together in the circulation department as we went to college at IUPUI. Jill apparently knew I’d been pretty lonely during my 10 years one year in Arkansas and wanted to make sure I knew someone here.
Jack and Beulah opened their Kessler Boulevard home, their hearts and their refrigerator to me, and I’ve always appreciated that.
They invited me to come over, walk in and help myself to the fridge, regardless of whether they were home.
As an overworked, underpaid and overly hungry young reporter, I took them up on their hospitality. You could always find something good to eat in Beulah’s refrigerator, and she made great strawberry pies.
They invited me to over on holidays and other family get-togethers, where Jack was often the cook. My recipe for sweet potatoes isa combination of my Mom’s and Jack’s.
We remained friends over the past 25 years, although we visited less often as my job demands changed, as I became involved in raising my own family and as we moved away for four years in June 2000.
Our daughters enjoyed their Halloween night visits to the Scotts. Beulah always had treat bags for them, usually including a toothbrush, and Jack was scary, to them, by just being Jack.
And of course, as my older daughter always said, “He has a such a big cat.”
Jack died this week, after a lengthy illness. He suffered for years with pulmonary fibrosis, the same disease that took the life of his brother, Donald, a former Seymour police chief and city councilman.
Both men — natives of Freetown — served their communities.
Jack umpired youth sports for years, had been active with the Jackson County Genealogical Society and maintained for a while a museum at the former Washington School on Seymour’s south side. He loved local history and enjoyed helping others learn about their family histories.
Jack also was a huge fan of his beloved, bemoaned and often belittled Chicago Cubs.
Soon after I moved to town, he installed a satellite dish so he could better follow the Northsiders.
This was not one of those little dishes that look like bird feeders.
It was huge.
I suspected the Reagan administration planned using it as part of its proposed Star Wars missile defense initative.
When Jack changed channels, satellite positionings or whatever it was, you couldn’t hear the TV, or anthing else in the neighborhood. The motor powering the dish would drown out any nearby noise as it whirred the dish to a new angle.
But it did bring in the Cubs. And we’d watch every night. Occasionally, he’d even tune in the Cardinals broadcasts for me. As long as they were playing the Cubs, of course.
Everyone should be a Cubs fan, he thought, if not demanded.
It’s a shame the Cubbies collapsed again this past season. Knowing that Jack was becoming more ill, I was hoping they could win a World Series for him. While there’s always next year for the Cubs, there would not be one for him.
Maybe somewhere today Jack is talking with Hack Wilson, Don Cardwell or Harry Caray. If so, I imagine he’s offering tips on how to hit a little better, how to pitch a more effective knuckler or how to broadcast a livelier ballgame.
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