Jim McIntosh was a big reason my husband and I became a part of this community. He was one of the first to make us feel really welcome when we came to Gilroy 15 years ago. He welcomed us with a big, booming laugh and gave us a big bear hug. With his white beard, we felt as if Santa had just greeted us. We went on picnics in the park with Jim, played many games of Mexican Train dominoes, and enjoyed free concerts at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk with Jim.
We really got to know Jim when we went as part of an 11-member Gilroy VIM (Volunteers in Mission) trip to Wales. We worked at the Amelia Trust Farm, a 160-acre working farm with classroom facilities, gardens, a kitchen, a gymnasium, a recording studio, an area of wetlands that was being restored, a wood shop, etc. The farm was founded by poor servant-class Robert and Ethel Huggards, who eventually pulled themselves out of poverty to establish their school for abused and troubled youth.
For many youth, it is a last resort. Jim loved meeting the youth at the farm. He was very moved by one young man in particular who was there because his family was too poor to support all their children, and they had chosen him as the one to give up.
Jim saw the farm as a place of healing with hands-on work, in its cathedral of pond, tree, and garden and animals that love you no matter who you are or what you’ve experienced in life. There was something wonderful about watching a youth who had been in and out of prison or on drugs getting up early in the morning to slop the pigs and feed the chickens. Jim pitched in enthusiastically and worked all day every day while there, helping build a deck, make the gymnasium better and to do all he could to improve the grounds at the farm.
Jim was a printer by trade, and in the past he had worked for the Gilroy Dispatch before going on to establish his own printing business. He was generous with his printing abilities; he helped middle school math teacher Val Kelly make a special sand dollar gift that she gave out to many of her students. He spent hours helping figure out the best design, and he printed many hundreds of them for her over the course of a decade, never asking for a penny. Jim did the same for his church, printing annual directories without charge.
An annual joy for Jim was going to church camp in the redwoods of Aptos each July. One of his favorite times there happened as a result of Jim being the coordinator for his church’s volunteers at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. One Sunday he stood up to make a big announcement in church asking for more volunteers for the Host Corps, which involves greeting visitors to the festival and being available to answer any and all questions, some of which can be challenging.
In his announcement, he meant to say that volunteers would be required to wear bright yellow vests that said, “Ask Me” on them, so that visitors would know who to approach with their questions. But instead of saying that, Jim announced, “You have to wear a vest that says, ‘“Help Me.’”
People got a big kick out of that, and so did Jim; once he realized what he’d said. He enjoyed any opportunity to make someone laugh.
After the announcement, the story was passed along for more laughs, and eventually someone said, “Maybe Jim should wear the words ‘Help Me’ on his vest this year at the Garlic Festival.” The idea caught on, and Jim’s friend Sue Sottilare came up with the idea: “Wouldn’t it be funny if we got Jim a bright yellow vest that actually said “Help Me” on it and presented it to him as a surprise at Monte Toyon?”
Monica Love, an excellent seamstress, volunteered to make it. Pastor Lee Neish, who knew Jim well, loved the idea, and commissioned her to “make it so.” Monica’s plan was to secretly make the vest while up at the camp. Only problem was, in the rush to pack everything, she hadn’t brought the tools she needed for attaching the “Help Me” felt lettering. That meant a call back home to her husband Andy to bring up was needed in order to finish the vest; however, the camp was out of reach of cell phone signals.
So an old-fashioned phone had to be used. But on the night that Monica was going to call, Jim just happened to plant himself right near the phone, so she couldn’t talk without him hearing. What to do?
Then someone suggested that there was an outside phone she could use. However, Monica didn’t have a phone card handy for calling. Then Don Londgren had the idea that his calling card still had a few minutes remaining on it, which he offered to donate. So Monica went outside to call, only to discover that the phone was located in a darkened area where she couldn’t read the numbers on Don’s calling card. So then I came outside and stood ten feet away under an outside light, loudly shouting out the numbers (for all the camp to hear?) from Don’s calling card so that Monica could then dial them and get Andy to bring up the things she needed for Jim’s vest.
Jan Kubik and Monica got the vest ready. It took the cooperation of a village of people behind the scenes to make this surprise gift happen. Jim absolutely loved the vest, loved the effort that had gone into it just for him, and loved the fun of that weekend and how it had bonded us all together in laughter.
And that’s how I’ll always remember Jim. Someone who welcomed others, who enjoyed life to the fullest, who loved nothing more than to make those around him laugh, who gave great hugs, who cared a lot about everyone close to him and who even wanted to make life better for young people across the sea whom he had never met before. He wanted to make a positive difference for everyone he met.
Jim lost his three-year battle with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) on February 13 at age 67. Just as Jim greeted so many others so warmly, we can just imagine him being greeted now in heaven with a big bear hug and lots of laughs.
