"Sydney LaRue's Living Room 1980" by Jimmy Campiche

      Jimmy Campiche and I began working at Long Beach School at about the same time – I in 1978, he the next year as I remember – and we became friends.  I was mid-career and close to middle-age.  Jimmy was my step-daughter Marta’s age and just starting out.  He was outrageous and funny and wonderful with the kids.  He rubbed most of the adults the wrong way.
    While I lamented “the system” and other educational woes privately, Jimmy spoke his mind.  I think I even had the audacity to caution him about that one time and he looked at me with that half-smile and ‘innocent’ eyes and I knew it was hopeless.  He’d heard it all before and it just wasn’t going to compute.
     He was living in a small apartment above his brother David’s gallery in Long Beach and he invited me up to see his record collection — and, yes, we laughed that it was a real invitation, not one of those come-and-see-my-etchings sort of thing.  He played a few of his favorites for me and made me tea and even showed me some of his artwork — mostly his whimsical drawings, not an etching among them.
     In the following years, he would come to my folks’ Christmas parties. He and Marta and Charlie would disappear upstairs to play cards and get away from all the friends of their parents and then, later, would go to Doc’s or Ole’s for a beer. They had much in common — Marta at that time was singing and had her own band and she and Jimmy talked music; Charlie was just beginning his career in animation and trying to decide if he would draw or write which were both serious interests of Jimmy’s.
     Even when he moved to the Seattle area, we stayed in touch.  He sent me reams of his writing – some of it a charming memoir of his growing up years in Seaview.   His memory for detail and his unexpected way of looking at the world kept me riveted.  I don’t know if he ever pursued having them published.
     The last time we saw Jimmy was at Christmastime five or six years ago.  He came by the house, unannounced, for a visit and brought a CD that he had put together from his record collection. It was Christmas music, of course, but in typical Jimmy fashion it included the off-beat numbers as well as the traditional.
     One of my treasures, here in my office where I can see it from my computer, is a drawing Jimmy did of our little house on the bay — the living room with the woodstove and doll cabinet and a chair – everything a big askew, furniture legs up in the air – in the whimsical style that was his trademark.    He did it in watercolor felt-tipped markers and it began to fade alarmingly early on. He took it back (I feared I would never see it again) and “fixed” it, but I think he used the same medium and it is disappearing once again.  And now Jimmy is gone.
     My memories of Jimmy will remain clear, however.  I treasure the glimpses he brought to us of a world we didn’t ordinarily see and I will forever miss knowing that he is nearby.