THE COMPASSION OF JAZZ. Jim Cassell

because he knew he was to inherit upon the death of his mother. Before or during World War II, my biological father became an alcoholic like his father before him; unfortunately, that’s all I really know of him, except that he was sixty-one years old when he passed away.

      I had two siblings then: Mike, who was six years my senior, and Vicky, who was two years my senior. Mike and I were not terribly close; he was a distant sort of presence in my childhood, having been sent to military school when I was young. He also spent more time with our alcoholic and abusive father than either Vicky or I did, which separated us from him early on. Vicky was my protector, beating up the kids who bullied me, though she did sometimes beat me up herself as well. My mom didn’t want Vicky to fight other boys, so she would let us fight out our issues. I remember the first time I was able to beat my sister was when I was 12, and after that, the fights tapered off.

      La Jolla was a small town when my grandparents settled, consisting mostly of ranches, farms, and regular folk. It attracted artsy people, dreamers, and those who just wanted to get away from the cold, and thus it quickly grew, having a population of almost 10,000 by the time we moved away. I loved the horses and the hayrides, and had a fondness for “cowboy music” as I knew it. If asked, I would have said that Frankie Lane was my favorite singer, as he sang all the famous Western titles such as “High Noon” and “3:10 to Yuma.” I dreamed of having such a ranch once I was grown, a dream no doubt heavily influenced by the movie Westerns I loved. I quickly changed my mind, however, when I learned that scorpions and rattlesnakes were native to Tucson, Arizona, which was the premier place to have a ranch in my young mind. Overall, I was a positive child, with childhood dreams. The first ten years of my life passed in idyllic happiness, and if my mother hadn’t remarried, I likely would have grown up to be a lifeguard or a surfer. Growing up in La Jolla was all about having friends and support for me and my mom, helping us get along—it was an embodiment of the saying “it takes a village to raise a child.”

       Jim’s Mom. (1929)

       Jim with his Mom – La Jolla. (1946).