As some of you know, the other week, my friend Jim Bailie passed, he was a former IMSA Crew Chief of the year while running the Brumos team in Super Car.
He had a very interesting history as he also worked with A.J. Foyt, and the stories he told about driving a tow truck to retrieve Police cars during the Watts riots.
Well, Friday I found out that another, long time friend, whom I shared a birthday with was in the ER, and not doing well, then Sunday I was notified that he was being moved into Hospice .
His daughter contacted me to let me know where he was and that her brother said that Buzz didn't look good, he wasn't Conscious. So it kept eating at me, so I decided that I would go then, since he might not be there the next day. I signed in at 1:30am, but wasn't prepared for how bad he looked, so I spent an hour talking to him, he of course couldn't respond, but I know that he heard.
Next morning I sent a note to his daughter and girlfriend to see if there were any changes. I didn't want to go to an empty room, as the last time I was going to hospice was because a girlfriend was in there, and I went every day for a week, then I show up and the room was empty, when I asked, I was told she pass3d last night and her roommates didn't bother to tell me
So for obvious reasons I am gun shy about that place.
Well Buzz and I have been friends since the 80s, he was a former career Marine and even reupped when it started getting nasty in the middle east. He was always very athletic and set track records in high school, and his kids have done the same as well as his grandchildren. We were both members of the same private club, although he had me by a year or 2 as a Charter member (I'm still a member), we were in the Beer Club, which was a compilation and only 15 members, so 16 and on didn't get in, we spent a lot of time on the pool table, played on the same volleyball team, ect. A while back, I wasn't able to reach him, so I decided to go to some of the other places that he liked to hand out and play trivia. It was at one of those places that I found out that he wasn't doing well, so I reached out to his girlfriend and she told about his health issues, and he couldn't really see to read emails and such, plus he was living with his daughter who moved back from Hawaii.
