I realize this is not a very good picture of my friend, Jack Fortune, but it is the only one I have. That is him on the left and I am on the right. This picture was taken when we were graduating from boot camp and ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It was given to me almost 50 years later by Bea Needham (maiden name...don't know married name.)

What do I say about Jack. He was definitely one of my best friends. I can't tell you all the things we did together as teenagers cause I don't know if the statute of limitations has run out on all of them...lol. But we were inseparable. My first thought of Jack was the time we were with Dick Rice and three of the Vians in Dick's car, late at night, down in Metropolitan Park. Dick got into an arguement with Jack and I and we told him to stop the damned car, we were getting out. He did and we did and he drove off. So here we were in the dead of night in the park and a long walk up to the main street to get a ride home. For some dumb reason, we were laughing about it. Then we heard their car coming back so we decided to "moon" all of them. This was unheard of back in the days. But as they got close to us, we dropped our drawers and shook out butts at them. They pulled up along side and Dick asked us to get back in. We said no. Then the girls asked us to get in. Not really wanting to stay down there in the park, we finally agreed and we got in the car. All the way home, the girls kept laughing. What a night.

We joined the Navy together, as the picture indicates. I wanted to go into the Marines but Jack said he didn't want to do all that walking and marching. I didn't want to go into the Navy cause I couldn't swim. Jack, and the Navy recruiter, won out.

The thing I remember about Jack was his omnipresent smile. All the girls loved his smile and his curly hair. He was just so much fun to be around.

We got out of the Navy after our first enlistment was finished. I hooked up with him in San Francisco and we decided to drive home in my '57 Chevy convertible. More excitement. We ran into a bad snow storm in the mountains and although only moving at about 10 mph, the car went into a slide and rolled over on its side. Neither of us were hurt and we climbed out of the driver side window. We then pushed the car back up on its wheels and it started right up. We stopped a passer-by and explained the situation and asked him to follow us down into the next town just in case there were any more problems with the car. He did and there were no problems. We stayed in a motel room that night and took the car over to be checked the next day and I also reported the accident to the police, for insurance purposes. The lady at the huge gas station was kind enough to drive me over to the police station and back again. We paid the bill on the car but as bad luck would have it, while backing up, I hit a car. Not much damage but the door was pushed in a little. Jack yelled, "Nobody seen us. Let's get out of here." I put it in drive and drove off. All the way home to Ohio we kept thinking they were going to pull us over someplace for the hit and run. Worst thing of all thought was the car belonged to the lady who was so nice to us. Always felt bad about that.

I could tell you a million stories like that about things we did. Nothing that was really bad but just always something slightly against the law. Jack passed away a few years ago and it was a shock when I found out. Some people you just never forget, no matter what. Jack was one of those people. I will always remember and miss him. "Fair Winds and Following Seas my friend."