[meteorite-list] My Friend Jim

[Notkin]

Dear Friends and Listees:

The true measure of a man is how he is thought of, and spoken of, by 
his peers. The notes posted here today on the Meteorite List are a 
fitting tribute to a person who was universally liked, respected, and 
admired.

We all remember Jim as a meteorite hunter of extraordinary skill, but 
he was also a father and grandfather, an engineer, a university 
professor, a devoted pet owner, a good neighbor, the founder of the 
town of Oro Valley, the energy behind the Oro Valley Historical 
Society, and the sort of thoughtful and loyal friend that few of us are 
lucky enough to have in their lives.

I met Jim, and his closest friend, Twink Monrad, nearly ten years ago. 
It was shortly after his co-discovery of the Gold Basin strewnfield had 
been announced. I was living in Hudson County, New Jersey back then, 
and had just made my first journey to Tucson for the 1998 Gem Show. Jim 
graciously granted me an interview and Steve Arnold and myself visited 
his home in Oro Valley. I was immediately struck by how energetic and 
enthusiastic Jim was for a man well into his sixties. I wrote: 
"Evidence of Jim’s former career as a University of Arizona civil 
engineering professor is everywhere: shelves filled with textbooks, 
articles and scholarly publications. Among them are eclectic 
meteoritical books by H.H. Nininger and others, and it became plain to 
me that this clear-eyed and vigorous man had not settled quietly into 
retirement, but rather had immersed himself in the new occupation of 
meteorite hunter."

Jim showed us many of his Gold Basin finds and then took us out onto 
his driveway with a couple of  stones and a White's Goldmaster III (his 
favorite detector). Jim showed us how to calibrate that detector so it 
would "see" Gold Basins, explained exactly how to get to the 
strewnfield, and put into each of our hands a real Gold Basin meteorite 
to take with us! Such generosity and such willingness to share "secret" 
information is more than a little unusual in our field. I know many of 
you also experienced Jim's kindness and desire to help others find 
meteorites themselves. And a good number of people on this List, and in 
our community, found their actual own first meteorite directly as a 
result of Jim's generous and sharing nature.

"Meteorite" published my story: "The Great Gold Basin Rush" in May of 
1998, but it wasn't just another interview for me. I really liked those 
people. The following year, Steve and I were thrilled by a personal 
invitation to join Jim and Twink at their Gold Basin campsite. It was a 
superb adventure, and out there in the field we became acquainted with 
Suzanne Morrison -- who would later become a close friend -- and Jack 
Schrader. That trip resulted in one of my best published articles. "The 
Midas Touch: A Return to Gold Basin," which was more about Jim than 
Gold Basin, and I took my all-time favorite photo of him there -- a 
black-and-white image in which he is holding up a freshly-found Gold 
Basin, wearing thick gloves, and with those big headphones clamped 
around his hat. That photo is featured on the Jensan Scientifics poster 
"The World of Meteorites from A to Z."

In 2004 I decided to leave my old life behind, and moved almost 3,000 
miles to sunblasted Tucson. I picked a home in the northwest, a little 
out of the city limits, as the neighborhood appealed to me, but mostly 
because I would be only a few minutes' drive from Jim and the Monrads. 
One of the first things Jim did was show up in his battered but 
indestructible Toyota Tacoma, with a ladder and a bag of tools. We 
climbed up on my roof, on a hot Sonoran Desert morning, and Jim showed 
me how to repair a swamp cooler. I'd never encountered one before, but 
we had it running in no time.

It seemed that every time I went over to Jim’s place he had just 
repaired the roof of his house, installed a new garage door, done a 
complete service on his trucks’ engines, or finished putting in some 
new piping or wiring. He could fix anything and didn’t believe in 
hiring a handyman to do something when he could do it better himself. 
Jim was the first person to show me the trick of putting powerful 
magnets onto my rockpick for fishing meteorites out of the desert sand. 
He also taught me to keep a spare battery in my 4WD in case the truck 
failed to start in some scary corner of the boonies. “That spare 
battery saved me a couple of times,” he once told me. In his own quiet 
way, Jim was prepared for anything.

He enjoyed the company of friends, but never minded hunting alone. Now 
and them Jim would call and say, “I just spent two days at Holbrook. I 
found 17 pieces totalling 31.2 grams,” or some such. He kept meticulous 
records of every trip and every find. He loved Holbrook and had an 
uncanny ability to spot tiny little stones hinding among the orange 
sand dunes.

I was barely settled in Tucson when Jim told me about some meteorite 
hunters he wanted me to meet. They were cautious about disclosing a new 
find, but Jim assured them I was discrete, and asked if he could bring 
me along. He felt there was a good article in it. And so, thanks to 
Jim, all on one amazing day, I met Ruben Garcia, Sonny Clary, and Mike 
Miller: three superb hunters who would become trusted friends and 
future expedition partners. Jim's idea of a trip to Franconia generated 
my favorite published piece:

"As always, Jim is a model of efficiency. I’m hooking up my Gold Bug 
metal detector, and checking my Camelback, gloves, hiking boots, 
gators, magnets, rock pick, baggies, fedora, sunscreen and sunglasses, 
and trying to make them all work together, somehow, in some kind of 
harmonious fashion. But the mouthpiece on my Camelback keeps getting 
tangled up with the detector cable. While dealing with that I’m vaguely 
aware of a subtle humming as Jim ground balances his Goldmaster. He’s 
all kitted up and ready to go, and although eager to begin the hunt he 
is also too gentlemanly to rush me. 'Don’t wait for me, Jim. I still 
have to check the cameras. I’ll catch up with you.'"

A few minutes pass, and I’m thinking to myself: While I’m getting all 
this gear together, I just know Jim is going to go out, find a 
meteorite right away, then come back here and say ‘I’ve already found 
one,’ and I’ll still be organizing my gear.'

'I’ve already found one!' I hear Jim shout out from west of the gulch. 
At most it’s been two or three minutes. His first catch of the day is a 
small, moderately weathered black chondrite. It had been slightly 
buried in the sandy flats north of Interstate 40 and jumps happily onto 
the magnet attached to Jim’s rock pick. I am reminded once again how 
skillful my friend is with a detector."

 From “Lingua Franconia: Deciphering Arizona’s Meteorite Graveyard”
“Meteorite” magazine August, 2004

http://www.aerolite.org/science/lingua-franconia.htm



There were many other adventures and many great memories, but I'll 
always think of Jim in his blue plaid shirt and his grey tweed hat, 
walking around the InnSuites during the Gem Show with his notebook, 
stopping every few minutes to shake hands with one of his many friends, 
before returning to the search for an obscure classification to add to 
his collection. There will be no filling of the place that Jim has left 
behind. But he was one of those few people who leaves the world in 
better shape than he found it. One of the finest men I ever knew.


Respectfully,

Geoff Notkin