I've been off the website for a while because I'm taking care of my brother at
his house as he fades away due to pancreatic cancer taking over. He is hanging
in there, upbeat, gets around with my help and rides the wheelchair up the lane
to the mailbox on a sunny day and we watch basketballl and now baseball on
TV and eat pizza and drink beer and sleep a lot. Here's his Ernest Hemingway pose.
FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2012
R.I.P JOHN BABBS
JANUARY 21, 1937-APRIL 12, 2012
John died in his sleep Thursday morning at 8 AM in his own bed
in his own house, just the way he wanted it, peaceful and pain free.
His wish to be cremated and buried on our property is the way it will
go down. Superb fly fisherman, excellent oil painter, writer of stories
and novels, best brother anyone could ever have. Adios mi hermano.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2012
BULLETIN BOARD ABOVE JOHN BABBS'S DESK
JOHN BABBS'S OBITUARY
John Babbs died from
pancreatic
cancer at his home in Glenwood, Oregon on
April 12, 2012. John was born in
Columbus, Ohio to Kenneth and Frances Babbs. He
grew up in Mentor, Ohio, near
Lake Erie and spent countless summer days at the lake
skipping flat rocks
across the water. He was a three sport athlete in high school, played
baritone
horn in the band and wrote for the school paper. He received a BA from
Western
Reserve University in Cleveland, where he also played on the football
and
basketball
teams. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and proudly
wore their pin,
for he was a practitioner of their motto: "Love of
learning is the guide of life."
John
earned his Masters Degree in English from Ohio State University and
taught
at
one of their satellite campuses. He also taught at a boys prep school
in
Pennsylvania,
and at Cleveland State. Later, after moving west, he taught at
Southern Oregon College
and The University of Oregon. He served two years in
the Army as a clerk-typist at Fort Knox.
He
was one of the original Merry Pranksters on Ken Kesey's psychedelic
painted bus,
Further, during the famous trip to Madhattan and back in 1964.
John
moved to Springfield, Oregon in 1972 and bought a small house on M
Street
where
he lived until the city widened the street, put in sidewalks and sent
out
notices the
house owners would be billed for the work. John immediately sold
the house along with
the bill from the city, and bought his "God's Little
Acre" in Glenwood, an idyllic haven
of trees and shrubs and flowers
bordered by a slough on three sides; a place where critturs
and birds roam.
John's
house was his studio. There he wrote books and stories and painted
large
oils,
almost all dealing with his lifelong passion: fly fishing. The North
Fork of
the
Willamette River was his favorite fishing spot and he knew every pool
and
riffle from
the covered bridge in Westfir to the Kiahanie campground, far
upstream.
John
never gave up his love for playing basketball. He was on the multi-year
Springfield Industrial League championship team, The Springfield
Creamery Jugs,
and
when the league disbanded, John began playing at the YMCA in Eugene,
his
sharp elbows
and deadly jump shot a fixture on the court well into his 70's.
Along
with the many friends John made at the Y, were his card playing buddies
at the
weekly poker game he held at his house. The hands were dealt fast, the
money
was
flowing, and deuces were always wild. John played a cagey game and won
more
than he
lost but the real gain was the camaraderie built up over the years,
lasting until his final
poker game four days before he died.
Who
can forget John tooling around town in his handpainted with a fish on
the
hood
1974 MGB convertible? Or the smile on his face captured in a photo when
he
netted
a fourteen inch rainbow and released it into the water. A quiet spoken,
unostentatious man,
well liked by everyone he met. Never married, but many
loving girl friends, John
demonstrated the qualities you admire in a person:
persistence, meticulous in his work,
a wry sense of humor.
John
is survived by his brother, Ken, and nine nephews and nieces and four
great
nephews and nieces.
JOHN BABBS REMEMBRANCE AND BURIAL
OF HIS ASHES AND POTLUCK SAT. APR 21
