Description

Personality

Jim has a decidedly reclusive personality. He doesn't see very much value in the company of others, except for learning stories and songs, for which he will go out of his way. His interest in sciences and literature has dwindled with the years, but he still considers intelligence among the most worthy human pursuits. As his physical capabilities for acts of generosity and kindness have weakened, so have his mental capacities for them. He doesn't make efforts towards empathy and has growing prejudices that he didn't feel in his youth. While he cannot yet be summarily described as a bitter old man, it's the bill that he's well headed towards.

Equipment

An aged and tarnished silver harmonica with a blue plastic grip and faded etchings of the Mississippi River. The harmonica is among Jim's most treasured belongings as it serves as his only true form of musical expression. Jim still dresses as if he were going to work every day, wearing mostly flannel shirts and dungarees. A worn brown leather jacket and pair of plainly beaded cowboy boots announce his entrance into any room.

History

James is originally a native of Ohio, a farmboy in youth. He learned trades of woodworking and carpentry through apprenticeship and worked extensively in large cites throughout his teens, exposing him to a variety of culture and race. He left home for schooling in architecture at a university at the age of nineteen and at the age of twenty enlisted in the US Navy to participate in the conflict of Vietnam. He served aboard the USS Kearsarge and at this time witnessed the carrier's participation in Project Mercury, an experience that opened his eyes to the wonder of not only the world but of worlds beyond.

He was engaged at this time to a girl that, after his return from the war aged twenty six, he married. He settled with her in the Black Hills of South Dakota where he worked in the design and construction of several monuments under the register of the state and Dakotan Indian reservations. He adopted his nickname "Jim" and, more disdainfully, "Buckeye Jim" in these years. At the age of thirty he discovered his infertility and, under the advice of a lawyer belonging to the Lakota reservation, claimed his exposures during the service as the cause. When attempts to collect compensation over the matter failed through lower veteran relief offices he brought his case to Washington. The ordeal led to time away from his wife and four years of work in the District of Columbia.

An affair with a young American folk singer during this time brought to Jim's attention the absence of music in his life, a tragedy without feasible solution. He won a settlement for the case he had raised at the age of 36, thanks to a wealth of claims regarding health defects caused by Agent Orange at the time, despite his own lack of exposure. His wife had left him two years earlier but, for her mention in the original case made, she was the recipient of the first twenty years of pension this resulted in. Jim raised a home in Virginia with the hope of finding the culture from which his folk-singing fling had come, but was hard pressed to find work of his own trade in the area. He worked in Newport News shipyards during this time and helped to construct the future line up of Naval carriers to serve in the ongoing Cold War, but the work was only spiritually familiar.

Jim remarried at the age of 39 and at 44 moved back to the Black Hills. At 49 he was diagnosed with skin and lung cancers, both seemingly terminal discoveries. In preparation for death he made several goals which he then accomplished, the completion of school among them as well as the hurried practice and eventual mastery of an instrument. For him, in this weakened state, it was the harmonica. After years of expensive treatment and a will drafted again and again his cancer went into a remarkably deep recession at the age of 57.

He began receiving his veteran pension and worked in the preservation of Dakotan landmarks for the state. His wife was discovered to have breast cancer when he was aged 60 and they began a familiar fight, losing four years later. Her death drove Jim to solitude and the last structure he helped to raise was his own reclusive mountain home which he lives in today.