Jim Foster: An appreciation for fighter and a friend

Posted 7/27/16

by Ed Feldman

Common ground. Where can we find it? It seems harder and harder, as we choose up sides, dig in and don't budge. The divisions between us are the beginnings of what grows into the …

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Jim Foster: An appreciation for fighter and a friend

Posted

by Ed Feldman

Common ground. Where can we find it? It seems harder and harder, as we choose up sides, dig in and don't budge. The divisions between us are the beginnings of what grows into the suspicion and hatred that make up so much of the horrible news.

Jim Foster was my friend. But from the way our culture seems to work now, he should not have been.

The differences between us, political and cultural, were as profound as any I have ever seen in two people.

Some called us, "The Odd Couple,” and I guess we were. A buttoned-down former banker, and a long haired former (?) hippie.

A soft spoken conservative, and a loud mouthed commie show off.

How did we become friends?

And how did I come to respect Jim as much as I have ever respected anyone I have ever known?

I won't leave this question out there. I'll be more like Jim. Direct.

He was decent. He was honest.

He was methodical.

He never gave up.

And he gave his adversaries every benefit of the doubt, until they refused to change, even after he had assembled an airtight case against them,

He gave everyone the same chance. Even me.

Given that chance, we found so many more things to agree on, so many more things to discuss seriously, and so many fun things to shoot the breeze about, that we never had to argue about the things that we didn't see eye to eye on.

Ever. And when we did "go there,” we were both respectful, because Jim's reasonableness was infectious.

We could even find a modicum of common ground on subjects that divided us.

Like, "No matter which Party, they're all a bunch of crooks."

But most of the time, our personal gab was spent talking about so many other aspects of our Venn Diagram.

He was a well-known Car Guy with an enviable collection. He was a History Guy. He was a Movie Guy. He was a Jazz Guy. He was a Rock and Roll Guy. And he was a Marine.

He could hold his own on so many subjects that the first thought I had after I heard the terrible news: "We had so much more stuff to talk about,” was soon superseded by “But there would never have been enough time."

That's how much he knew.

The details of our community activism will not be discussed here. Those of you who were not there, or who do not remember, can go to the Local's archives.

But know this. Jim was the one who did the lion’s share of the work, and Jim was the one who made sure every attempt was made at self-reform before outside agencies were called to help clean up an embarrassing mess.

His other investigative work and subsequent journalism in the newspaper that existed because of his efforts, his money and his personal will, have most recently been fully validated by the courts.

But Jim was there first. The Little Guy. The Guy with His Own Newspaper. The Guy Swimming Upstream. The Guy Fighting The Machine. The Guy Who Never Gave Up.

The Guy Who Was Right All Along.

America has an opinion of itself. It is put to the test often, and its pass fail ratio is not enviable.

We see it positively embodied in art most often, in depictions of our mythologized past.

I know full well of the difficulties in extolling the virtues of this past, and its victims have not yet been given their due.

But like the relationship I shared with Jim, I can draw the positive aspects out and build on them.

In a film called, "Ride The High Country" by Sam Peckinpah, an aging marshall, played by Joel McCrae, out on the trail, on one last job, with ne'er-do-well ex gunfighter Randolph Scott responds to the question we all must answer, even if we are never asked. "At the end, what do you want?"

"All I want is to enter my house, justified."

Mission accomplished, Marine.

Jim Foster died from a stroke on July 17. He was 75. See his obituary here.

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