As you get older in life, you read the obituaries and you start seeing people and friends you knew well. And one day it really hits you hard when the person you are reading about is one of your very best friends.
Take Atty. Jim Gregorowicz, for instance.
One of my best friends in life for the past 49 years, Jim died recently at 62.
This scribe met Jim through his brother Andy at Scranton Prep when he was a freshman there.
Coming from a public school, this scribe, as a sophomore, did not have a lot of friends there until Andy approached me and asked me if I liked playing APBA and Strat-o-Matic baseball board games.
He heard about that through a mutual friend Tom Reese, his neighbor in Dickson City. He also mentioned he heard from Tom, a former classmate of mine at Robert Morris Elementary School, that I loved baseball. Andy soon became my best friend in high school and that’s how I met his younger brother Jim, a freshman.
I started to meet other people through Jim. Three of those guys, Paul “Saki” Wysocki, Tom “Duggie” Duggan, and Mike Booth became a part of a brotherhood that lasts until this day. We added five more close friends to that group in our college years at the University of Scranton: the late Pat O’Malley, Ned “Doc” Sweeney, Steve Gall, Ted “T.C.” Christy, and Brian Bosley. Jim and Andy’s older brother, John, also was a part of the group.
When I look back at my life, Jim was a huge part of it all. He was my friend through all of the ups and all of the downs.
He was with me in our high school days when I smashed my gold Ford Pinto into a parked car and totaled it on North Washington Avenue in Green Ridge. Jim and I never forgot the date. May 19, 1978. We often talked about it.
He was with me Tuesday, Oct. 21, 1980, when the Philadelphia Phillies, his favorite baseball team, won their first World Series. Our group of friends watched the game at McCourt Hall at the University of Scranton. After Phillies lefty reliever Tug McGraw got the final out, we raced up Mulberry Street to Scanlan’s Saloon shouting, “Tug! Tug! Tug!”
He was with me the night we downed about a dozen free hot dogs each at Scanlan’s like it was nothing. Every time someone turned around to get a hot dog it was gone. Because one of us grabbed it. Jim loved telling that story and insisting to everyone it was me who ate the two dozen hot dogs.
He was with me every single time we snuck into a high school football game and high school and college dances. Even a few concerts. We did it not only because we didn’t have much money, but just to say we did. We would laugh every time.
He was with me when we all started drinking beer from the side of our mouth at Scanlan’s, only because “it tastes better that way.” And we kept doing it way into adulthood. Something else just for a laugh.
He was with me when our buddy Duggie noticed the Scanlan’s juke box incorrectly had Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” listed as “Night Norge.” Every time one of us started talking to a girl trying to get a date or phone number, Duggie would call out, he’s making a “Norge!” Jim got a big kick out of that and it became an inside thing for the group.
He was with me and our group in 1980 when we all saw Springsteen for the first time at The Spectrum in Philadelphia during “The River” tour. We were hooked for life.
He was with me August 10, 1981 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia when Pete Rose broke Stan “The Man” Musial’s National League hit record with number 3,631. No one in the packed house was screaming “Pete, Pete, Pete!” louder than us.
Jim was with me all of those Monday nights we played Strat-o-Matic baseball in our friend T.C.’s apartment. He loved drafting and trading players.
He was with me when we played intramural basketball at the University of Scranton, pickup basketball games as young adults, touch football at Fern Hill in Olyphant, and many Long John Silver’s softball games, which he organized. Jim was always Larry Bowa at shortstop and I was Pete Rose at first base. Those games were epic.
He was with me the 4th of July, 1986, when a group of us trekked out in two old cars to Buffalo to see the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. It was an all-day concert with a 6-hour drive up and 6-hour drive back. The two groups of us lost each other on the highway and somehow we found each other among 100,000 people at Rich Stadium even though it was general admission.
He was with me in Syracuse to see Springsteen on a night the Syracuse police attempted to drag me away for recording a song and when I got on the wrong bus after the concert with our buddy Jack Gilroy and almost ended up in Toronto, Canada, before jumping off and hitchhiking in a blizzard and somehow getting back to the hotel in Syracuse where Jim and the rest of our friends were. Jim was laughing about that during breakfast the next day and all the way home.
He was with me on so many trips to Phillies games, NBA games, and concerts. He was with me at one of Dr. J’s final home games at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. He absolutely loved all sports, especially baseball.
Jim was there during my induction into the Northeastern Chapter of the PA Sports Hall of Fame three years ago. It meant a lot.
He loved music and concerts. It was Jim who got me into the music of Jimmy Buffett, Warren Zevon, Springsteen, Southside Johnny, John Eddie, Dave Mason, and Graham Parker. “Margaritaville” was one of his all-time favorite songs. He loved the life of Jimmy Buffett.
He was with me all of the nights we hung out at Uncle Mike’s in North Scranton and sang ‘American Pie.”
He was with me when we all sang “Thunder Road” together at each other’s weddings.
Jim had a great sense of humor and enjoyed poking fun at the oddities in life. And he poked fun at himself. Like the old Dodge Dart he drove around for years and his “Archie Bunker” winter coat.
He was a huge Philadelphia sports fan, but knew about all of the teams.
He came from a very close Polish family in Dickson City. His parents taught him great middle class values he carried with him in life. He spoke often of his dad coaching him and his brothers in the Dickson City Little League and later helping him set up his law practice. He spoke of the family values and religion he learned from his mom.
He was close to his brothers Andy, John, and Ed and sister Anne Marie and numerous nieces and nephews.
Jim enjoyed the simple things in life. Material things had no importance to him. He was at his best hanging with his friends, talking sports, and playing Long John Silvers softball games.
Jim was also highly intelligent and in his 30’s worked hard to earn his law degree at the University of Baltimore. He had a law practice in Scranton.
But it’s not Jim the attorney his friends knew. It was Jim the person. We all have a special bond that goes beyond someone’s occupation.
Jim loved nicknames. He was the first to call me “scribe” and first to call me “Greek,” which stuck among my closest friends.
One time during a high school study class he kept asking me what my least favorite word is. Finally, I conceded and threw out the word, Germ. “Ok, from now on you’re the Greek Germ,” Jim chuckled. He also liked calling me “Savage Scribe” or “Greek Savage.”
One of his final texts to me was that he spotted a book “Doc Savage” at the local library. “I had to get it,” he texted. Of course, that was a reference to me and our close friend Ned “Doc” Sweeney. Those little things I will miss the most.
He was a big fan of lists. Jim always had a top 10 and wanted to know your top 10. Top 10 NBA centers ever, baseball pitchers ever, TV sitcoms ever, TV character actors ever, baseball hitters ever, football quarterbacks ever, coolest people ever, best bands ever, best single artists ever, best baseball broadcasters ever…
So in dedication to my friend, here are some of the favorites on his lists: Susanna Hoffs, Mike Schmidt, Tug McGraw, Larry Bowa, Steve “Lefty” Carlton, The Joker, Larry Bird, Bill Walton, Wilt, Jimmy Buffett, Dean Martin, James Dean, Clint Eastwood, Babe Ruth, Mike Trout, The Three Stooges, Happy Days, The Fonz, the two Chucks from Happy Days, Uncle Mike’s, Bubba from Sanford and Son, Speed from The Odd Couple, Larry from Bewitched, Larry from Three’s Company, Elvis the King, Bob Dylan, Springsteen, Spike and, Bag from Happy Days, the Dodge Dart, the Philadelphia Phillies, Dragnet, Asbury Park, Norm from Cheers, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, Badlands, Larry Linville from MASH, Bob Costas, Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto, Richie Ashburn, Harry Kallas…
Digesting the little things in life and finding humor in it all. That was Jim.
Screen Door Slams on Thunder Road.
Rest in peace eternally Jim, my friend for life and beyond.