Remembering Jim Pollock: A good friend, gone too soon

Here it is, another mid-April in Iowa, the weather toggling between snowy and slippery and drizzly and gloomy. And I'm missing an old friend, Jim Pollock, gone these six years now.

For years Jim and I were co-workers at The Des Moines Register. Actually, Jim was one of the first people I met when I showed up for work on The Register's sports copy desk the afternoon of May 13, 1981. To the rest of the world that was the day the pope was shot. For me, it was the day I started working alongside John Sotak, the Daves -  Randall,  Reynolds and Stockdale - Bill Huffman, John Millea, Bob Spurgeon and Jim Pollock.

As I would quickly learn, it was an all-star crew, editors snatched up from smaller Iowa papers blended with young local talent, many from Des Moines' Drake University's fine journalism program. Despite being the most soft-spoken of the team, Jim stood out for his self-deprecating humor, wry wit and uncanny ability to cut to the core of any issue. He laid bare Iowa tropes like the myth that the weather gods perpetually jinxed the girls' state basketball tournament with an unseemly string of blizzards. "Maybe it's because the tournament is in February in Iowa," he scoffed.

You can count on one hand the number of Register co-workers I've had to dinner at my house. Jim was one. He and his wife, Nola, were relative newlyweds and childless when they arrived for dinner. My wife Linda and I thought we might have convinced them to remain childless after supping with us and our brood of three children ranging in age from 2 to 11 at the time, but Jim and Nola went on to have three great kids of their own.

Jim, a small-town boy from State Center, Iowa, settled with his family in the tiny exurban community of Bondurant, which he affectionately referred to as the "Bondo metroplex." Our careers at The Register diverged in the mid-1980s when newsroom managers recognized Jim's ability to transform the most humdrum news story into concise, engaging prose. So, during a newsroom reorganization, Jim was moved into a reporting role. He quickly staked out ownership of one of the best-read and most-anticipated feature stories of the year, an annual compilation of quirky "Below the Fold" stories, those that in newspaper lingo weren't of sufficient news value to be seen on a newsstand. Of course, in Jim's hands, they were must-reads.

I remained in sports, which, for various reasons, is treated in most newsrooms as something of an anomaly. At The Register, once a statewide paper that reported sports scores from every high school in the state, the sports department was a busy (and noisy) place on high school game nights. As a result, The Register eventually relocated sports to a room apart from the main newsroom. With the physical separation, plus the fact that Jim worked mostly days and I frequently worked nights, we seldom saw each other for several years.

Eventually, Jim left The Register and took a job at Meredith, a magazine publisher based in Des Moines. He worked for a financial magazine for a while then joined the staff of Wood magazine, a good fit for Jim, an accomplished woodworker. In 2004, he returned to news as the managing editor at The Business Record, Des Moines' preeminent business publication.

After leaving The Register, Jim and I would get together for an occasional lunch, maybe 2-3 times a year. They were like any lunches with friends. We talked about family, mutual acquaintances and how the world was changing. Jim seemed genuinely perplexed by the gentrification movement that was building steam in downtown Des Moines. "Who's going to live in all these places?" he'd ask. Jim was one of the few people who knew of my active job search in the early 2000s, including near misses at jobs with Younkers, Iowa Cultural Affairs and the Omaha World-Herald. He very nearly landed me a job at Meredith, too, as detailed in this blog post.

Jim was among the first to know when I decided to launch my own personal history business in 2005. As I was setting up my home office, Jim helped me transport a heavy oak desk in his truck from the furniture place up a flight of stairs to my office, all for the cost of a lunch. A real bargain.

It was with great sadness that I learned Jim was sick in April 2012. His illness advanced quickly and he was in hospice and dead before I could visit him.

I've lost a lot of Register friends over the years, but Jim's death has affected me the most. It's hard for me to explain. We didn't see each other often, but each meeting was memorable, if for its ordinariness. It's kind of how I remember my family growing up. There are many memorable events, sure, but what I remember most easily are family dinners where my mom and dad, brothers Ron and Dave are around the table discussing our day. Our dog, Rusty, is begging for scraps from the table. Nothing more specific than that, just a feeling.

After Jim died, The Business Record published a book of Jim's Transition columns. Nola graciously sent me copy and, while some of the columns are now dated, Jim's easy wit and fluid style bring a smile to my face every time I read one. Here's an excerpt from Jan. 9, 2006, where Jim writes about selling the family farm after 137 years:

"South of the driveway, submerged in thick grass and weed, is a little chunk of concrete with my older sister's name on it. It was originally the base of a clothesline post, but when a visitor found it, she gently asked if Judy was the name of a family pet. No, I said, that's my sister; she's in Ames. That really threw her, because she thought it was a gave marker. That's right, I said. In my family, we believe that when you die, you go to Ames."

Jim was buried In Ashton Cemetery in rural Jasper County. We visited Jim's grave shortly after burial. As the photo shows, I left a pica pole (newspeople know what that is) at the gravesite to commemorate his service to journalism. It's a small cemetery. So remote, So quiet. So beautiful. So perfect.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died: The Last Tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- is available at Amazon.

Comments

[Dave Reynolds]

Hi Larry, it's Dave Reynolds. The Jim Pollock story brought a tear to my eye. I remember him well along with all the names you mentioned. It was a special time in my life because I'd just met my future wife. We now have 6 grandkids. I stayed in touch with Dave Randall some over the years and saw some of the R&T reporters sometimes at games, but wished I would have stayed connected more with the rest of the crew. A great bunch of guys. I'm probably the only one still writing sports for a newspaper (Peoria Journal Star) and have a few years to go. Thanks for the memories.

[Matt chatterley]

Thanks Larry! It was great to read your great prose again and great to remember Jim. We had the privilege of working with some truly great people.

[Travis Hanson-Pollock]

Thanks for this Larry. It's nice to hear his coworkers and friends are thinking about him. I was lucky to have him as a dad.

[Beth Dalbey]

Working with Jim at the Business Record was one of the greatest privileges in my career in journalism, and hiring him one of the greatest accomplishments.