JIMMY
JORDON
A
Sagacious Tale About A
Basketball
Player, Golfer
And
Family Man
By Izzy Ess of Happiness
Jimmy
Jordan was an Afro-Canadian, and tall, and quite a basketball player. He was the captain of the winning basketball
team at his school, the Westdale Secondary School, in Hamilton, Ontario in
Canada. He was the only black guy in the
school. His family had moved to Westdale,
to an otherwise white area. His dad had
been a long-time employee of Stelco, the Canadian Steel Company, whose hiring
practices allowed for hiring blacks and Mr. Jordon had risen in the rank and
file to be a union leader and a supervisor on the line, at Stelco. He was rich enough to get a mortgage in old
Westdale, that was lily-white until he did move in, and lots of neighbours did
move out. As feared, the properties
became less valuable. But, there was an
influx of the middle management of many companies and values stared climbing,
once again. Jimmy’s value to the budget
for athletics at his high school was strongly positive and the teachers valued
his attendance and his prowess as an athlete.
All
was peace and harmony until our Jimmy couldn’t keep his grades up. Special tutors were called in, to no
avail. The school board had no choice
but to keep him off the team because he had a failing grade in grade XIII, his
senior matriculation year. The scouts
from NBA still liked his prospects and he was hired by the Atlanta Falcons, on
probation. He was spectacular playing
round ball with the professionals in Atlanta and the Falcons made the playoffs
for the first time in a long time.
Atlanta
Falcons made it to the finals, but they lost the final game when Jimmy had
fouled out and his team-mates couldn’t score enough to make a difference. They lost by only one point in the final
second when a Falcon failed to make his final hook shot when he caught the ball
right in the key. The Falcon management
was pleased and figured Jimmy for their key player in the years to come. During the summer break for basketball, Jimmy
was encouraged to try his finals at his high school, once again, and did get a
passing grade, which was just high enough to get him through but not to qualify
him for the College entrance examinations.
His ambition was to get into a law school, but his marks were not yet
good enough.
The
next year, led by Jimmy Jordan, now the “Other Jordan,” the Atlanta Falcons
took it to the playoffs and the championship of the NBA. Our Jimmy was the MVP of the whole long
playoff series, where he consistently was the one who made the winning buckets,
eh? The City of Atlanta showed their
appreciation with a big parade, after the championship was won. Our Jimmy gave all credit to his parents who
were so supportive all throughout the season and the playoffs. They attended every game and could be heard
shouting for him as they sat behind the Falcon bench. Sometimes, they even made the evening news
with Jimmy’s interviews and were lauded for their parental skills.
Our
Jimmy and his parents looked again at getting him some marks to enter a law
school, somewhere. They hired, at great
expense, some special teaching lawyers to give him advice about the writing of
the LSATs, the examinations that were counted most for entrance into pre-Law
courses, which would lead to Law School entry.
Jimmy was successful in passing all his tests. He enrolled in Pre-Law courses on the
internet under supervision of the Osgood Law School of the University of
Toronto. His coaches for the Falcons
understood his strong ambitions and allowed him some time off during the whole
season to attend the special classes when he needed to, and to take the
required written and oral exams which could not be done by internet. Our Jimmy was quite organized and managed to
be successful in his basketball career, as well as scoring huge successes with
his Law School courses.
The
Falcons made the playoffs but were defeated by the Pistons in the
semi-finals. Jimmy felt he was
responsible and had a conference with the coaches and the management and owners
of the Atlanta Falcons. It was decided
that he had to choose between his basketball and his ambitions to become a
lawyer. Jimmy discussed his options with
his parents and the professors at the Osgood Hall. He was able to take a break from studying to
be a lawyer for two whole years, so that he could better concentrate on
basketball.
The
decision seemed to be a good one. During
those two years, he helped the team achieve two Championships. He was, again the MVP and was applauded by
all his fans. Then, he took a three
year break from basketball, as had been agreed upon by the owners of the
Atlanta Falcons, who, by previous secret agreements, started negotiations with
the 76ers to trade our Jimmy Jordan for a higher draft choice in the coming
season. Jimmy scored very highly in his
written and oral examinations at Osgood Hall at the University of Toronto,
passing his Bar examination with flying colours. An offer from a prominent Law Firm in
Hamilton, Ontario, was accepted and he became a Junior Partner within a year,
with bonuses and benefits, accordingly.
An LLB was awarded to him and he went on to study further for a LLM and
then an LLD, a Doctorate of Laws. He was
rewarded with a full partnership at the Law Firm, Weinstein, Weinstein,
Weinstein and Jordan, with a very high salary, plus all benefits and bonuses.
Our
Doctor James Jordan, bought an old mansion in the shadow of the Hamilton
Escarpment, on a road that snaked up to the mountain top. His parents moved right in with him in a
neatly redesigned first floor, while he occupied the whole second floor. He successfully fought off a paternity suit
from a gold-digging beautiful woman with an only child, that looked a lot like
Jimmy would have, were he half black.
The DNA analysis proved that it was highly unlikely that Jimmy was the
bi0logical father of this white woman’s child.
Jimmy
joined the previously exclusive white membership of the Hamilton Mountain Spa
and Country Club and started playing tennis and some golf. He was good at both and won some tournaments,
there. He started dating one of the
single debutantes, who were also members of the HMSCC. They seemed to be just great together and he
proposed a marriage for the spring.
Lucille McGill accepted and she started planning for the wedding. It was held at HMSCC and was a grand
affair. Lucille and Jimmy took a month
for a great honeymoon in Fiji. When they
returned, they announced her pregnancy.
A beautiful bouncing baby boy was born and he was Christened, “James
Jordan, II. He was very healthy and
looked like he was going to be tall and intelligent, much like his parents,
Jimmy and Lucille. A nursery was
fashioned on the second floor of his big mansion, right next to the master
bedroom.
When
the little Jimmy was ten, he was doing well in school, a private institution,
Kanata Schools, in Hamilton. It had
strictly supervised dormitories in a kind of modern apartment building, right
next to the class-room building on the Hamilton Mountain, overlooking Hamilton,
Burlington Bay and Lake Ontario. Our
Little Jimmy’s room-mate was a Mohawk Native, Sonny Seneca, a son of the Chief
who lived on Reserved Land, north of Peterborough. A strong friendship developed between the two
eleven year olds. Jimmy was frequently
invited to the reservation to spend time with the Six Nations’ folks, some of
whom were very wealthy. Luxury Hotels
with splendid Casinos were their specialty.
The entire Jordan clan were oft invited to be guests of the Algonquin
family at one of their Hotels and Casinos, north of Ottawa, near Mattawan. Big Jimmy was a gambler and liked high
stakes. He often dropped a hundred
thousand dollars in an afternoon at poker tables but he made it up with his
golfing and his tennis skills with high stake holes and tennis matches. The Seneca family was quite delighted since
Jimmy Jordan drew a wealthy crowd of onlookers to the high stakes golf and
tennis matches. Often there were hefty
side bets on each shot and tennis game.
Jimmy’s
Law Firm was flourishing and Jimmy reaped the benefits and bonuses. He was a favourite of wealthy sports fans who liked the notion that a famous
athlete would be their representing lawyer.
His expertise impressed the local and the national judges who were
presiding in his cases, all over Canada.
A
Raptors sports fan was embroiled with others in the crowd where an official
made an iffy judgement about a foul that resulted in a loss for the hapless
Raptors, in a crucial game, that might have cost the Raptors a chance to make
the playoffs. The fan had punched an
opposing fan and caused grave injury when the opposing fan from Los Angeles
fell into the hard seats and broke his neck.
The resulting quadriplegia was tragic and the California sports fan sued
the Toronto sports fan for ten million Canadian dollars. Jimmy Jordan represented the Los Angeles
native. The court case was watched by
many fans on Television, the News and Sports’ reports. Jimmy won for his USA client his ten million
plus another ten for losses in his businesses and social disabilities. The case made Jimmy even more famous than he
was before and much wealthier.
Jimmy
dreamed of returning to the Sports world as a professional golfer. He qualified easily for the US and Canadian
Golfers Professional Associations.
Initially, he surprised a few champions with his match play and his
general performance on the tennis circuit which including playing in some major
tournaments. In fact, he did place third
in the Canadian Open and a solid second in the Masters, in Augusta, Georgia. His ranking jumped from 88th to 15th,
in his first year. When he passed his 50th
birthday, he was invited to join the Senior Circuit and placed in the top four,
consistently. Now, extremely wealthy, he
gave up his practicing of Law and “retired” to play the Senior PGA,
successfully, for over 20 years.
Tragedy
befell the Jordans when their little Jimmy died in a car crash on the Queen
Elizabeth between Hamilton and Kingston, on his way to meet his friend, Sonny
Seneca, in Mattawan. Little Jimmy had
been a student at the University of Toronto’s Medical School, the Faculty of
Medicine. Sonny and he were on vacation
from their respective universities and were going to go camping in Algonquin
Park. The funeral was well attended and
the memorial made all the evening News programmes.
Jimmy
Jordan’s grief was profound. His golfing
suffered and he just stopped playing for six months. After he got back to it, his winning ways had
disappeared. He was further devastated
by this wife’s death of untreatable breast cancer. He became inconsolable when his parents died
within a week of each other. Jimmy had
to be hospitalized for severe depression, required electroconvulsive therapy
and many antidepressant drugs, without
dramatic responses. Jimmy did
respond to cognitive and behavioural modification psychotherapy. His psychotherapist later said that what happened
next was unforeseeable.
Our
Jimmy started getting privileges to leave the guarded ward and the antisuicidal
precautions that had been put in place.
He seemed to like the park-like grounds of the Mountain Psychiatric
Hospital. Our Jimmy smiled a lot at
other patients and the psychiatric nurses that walked with him, sometimes. He seemed to form a favourable attachment to
a Mrs. Sally Simpson, a divorcee, who liked his company. Sometimes they did walk for hours in silence
but with winning smiles that brightened up each other’s moodiness. Our Jimmy liked to show off his old
athleticism by jumping fences and by climbing trees. This apparent child-like behaviour was
thought to be a good sign, all around’
One
fateful day, Jimmy vaulted o’er the fence that edged the hospital’s large
property at the mountain’s edge. The
nursing staff and the other patients watched in horror as he disappeared. They all ran to see where he had gone and
there he was down about an hundred feet, sprawled out on the road that lead
from the city centre to the mountain top.
A pool of blood was slowly forming under him. Someone had called 911 and an ambulance soon
approached our Jimmy and blocked off the mountain road. The Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP, arrived soon after and directed traffic around
the body and the ambulance. Our Jimmy
had no vital signs. He wasn’t moved
until the doctors could be called to evaluate his status and they declared him
dead. The body was wrapped in a white
sheet and he was taken to the morgue at Hamilton General hospital. The final report was that he had died of his
injuries sustained in his great fall. It
was reported as accidental though the many who had seen him vault the fence
were certain it was deliberately suicidal.
The
funeral and memorial drew a lot of dignitaries from Hamilton and the sports
world. The pall-bearers were his former
team-mates from Atlanta. The Mayor and
the Premier of Ontario were present.
Many Afro-Canadians and Six Nations’ folks attended. A lot of senior golfers came to see him
buried and memorialized. Many spoke
about his accomplishments in Law and Athletics, and about all the personal
losses that he had sustained. They also
talked a lot about the love he’d had for his parents, his wife and his only child
and how he was beloved, in turn, by everyone, including all his fans.
Many
wealthy Canadian folks contributed generously to a fund, the Jimmy Jordan
Memorial Scholarship Fund, that was
created for scholarships, both Academic and Athletic, for Afro-Canadians and
natives of the Six Nations of Canada. A
large bronze statue was erected in his honour on a little patch of land donated
by the Ontario Provincial Government, on the edge of the grounds surrounding
the Hamilton Psychiatric Institute. It
was located at the exact spot that Jimmy had vaulted the fence and died. Engraved in bronze was the list of his
accomplishments and the names of his parents, his son and his wife. It showed his birthday and the day of his
death, plus a wish that he Rest in Peace.
It was entitled, “Jimmy Jordan, A Hamilton Hero.”
THE
END
© izzy sommers, md
Welland, Canada
November 1, 2013
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