Date: Fri 20-Nov-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Jim-Kearns-Commentary-Evans

Full Text:

COMMENTARY: Jim Kearns And Small Moments Of Beauty And Joy

BY DOROTHY EVANS

I really did not know Jim Kearns at all beyond the fact that as a former Bee

reporter covering the library, we would frequently pass, nod and smile. Jim

died last week at the age of 62.

Jim was always there, it seemed, either outside shoveling snow, pruning,

raking and generally cleaning up, or inside, helping the librarians move books

and equipment, talking quietly with patrons or staff members, or sitting by

himself over by the computer section, thinking who knows what deep thoughts.

Somehow I always suspected that Jim had the soul of a poet and there was one

conversation that we had a year ago that led me to believe this was so. I was

writing a story about raking leaves -- and how Newtowners were tackling that

gargantuan project in October of 1997, a year when no blight or fungus marred

a bumper crop of glorious foliage.

Jim would be working outside the library day after day, rain or shine,

single-handedly pursuing the ever-falling maple leaves, scooping them up and

shoveling them into the strangest contraption you ever saw that he'd built

himself just for the job.

It was about the size of a refrigerator and looked like a chicken coop on

wheels. As Jim explained to me, by stuffing the leaves into a little

chicken-wire door, he was able to cram a whole lot of them into his cart, more

than would ever stay put in an open wheel-barrow. Then he'd haul them out back

and dump them, thereby keeping the library lawns green and leaf-free for one

more day.

Of course, that didn't stop the cars rushing down Main Street from creating

eddies and whirlwinds to disturb his carefully raked piles. And the gusty

north wind still blew all the neighbors' unraked leaves downhill across the

library's front walk and lawns. And those huge maples which he'd cared for and

enjoyed for over 30 years seemed to have an endless supply raining down.

But Jim took these things in stride because he had a philosophy about raking

leaves. He believed in starting early and keeping at it. And he didn't worry

too much about parts of the process that he couldn't control.

I know he loved tending the library grounds, working outdoors and appreciating

the small moments of beauty with infinite joy. As we were talking together

that warm October day, he pointed out a tiny white pine that had sprouted from

the trunk of one of the maples and was growing vigorously toward maturity. Two

feet above the ground, that young pine was being well nourished by the old

tree. For 10 years now, he said, he had loved to sit on the bench, eat his

sandwich and watch it grow.

We laughed together at the thought that when the old maple tree died, the

white pine would be there growing from its trunk, ready to take over.

(Dorothy Evans, a former reporter for The Newtown Bee , lives in Virginia.)