I received a call from Skip Wilcox yesterday concerning Jim's passing to the "Great Resort" in the sky. I hesitate to write much because truly I did not know him well. I do remember rushing over to MacDonald's Resort back in the summer of 2005 because I was told there would be a job opening to clean the cabins. Not until years later did I realize I had spoken to Jim, who I thought was simply the maintenance man. Jim referred me to Gary and I was told gently that they preferred to employ family!
I do know that at this time there will be no Memorial Service for Jim.
Jim was just honored by The Chamber as Individual of the year at the last meeting.
The MacDonald Family is a jewel in this treasure we call Bayview, Jim the dazzling diamond in the rough!
Jim will be missed.
Norma Jean and Dean
Norma Jean - Thank you for such a nice tribute to Jim. The MacDonald family is a legacy to this community with Jim's father, Alvin, at the start of it all. For those that don't know it, there is a memorial at Farragut State Park located at what was once called MacDonald Point, which also has quite a story. It was stolen for the brass many years ago and one day a lady called Jim and said "I think I have something that belongs to you if your father's name was Alvin". The lady came to Jim's shop and presented it to him. My family and I had the wonderful opportunity of placing it back into the stone memorial where it belonged and being married to McGyver, it will never come off again. We took pictures to Jim so he could see that everything was back as it should be. With tears in his eyes, expressed his appreciation. Shame on those who stole it in the first place, but God bless the lady that returned it to Jim. We will miss him very much, but we will enjoy sleeping in on the weekends as he would occasionally call us just to wake us up.
ReplyDeleteI sincerly appreciate your disclosure of not knowing Jim and your well written grammatical article. Your honesty and sincerity is gratefully appreciated. I only wish others that have blogs would be as professional and articulate as you and keep their negative remarks to themselves.
Thanks again,
Jamie Berube