James Maffett April 8, 1929 - December 9, 2020

Condolence(1)

1. REPLY

   Anne Aastum says

   January 4, 2021 at 2:03 pm

   I can’t begin to say how much your father cherished his family; but, I’m sure he could be tough on you 3 too. Tough but tender too I’m certain.
   Being with him was such a bitter-sweet memory. If only I had been 20 years younger….if only…

   Oh, the stories he shared with me about growing up in Boise and hanging out with his school buddies. One of their favorite pastimes was to liberate a cake from Albertsons saying that they had been sent there by so and so to pick it up for a celebration – then they took it and ran somewhere to eat the whole thing. At some point Albertsons caught on. The time he fought fire with the Forest Service and walked from the top of Pilot Peak and back into Idaho City. Of driving an old “ganster type car” that had inoperable wipers so his job was to attach a rope to them and manually pull them back and forth; of “orderly” fist fights in back alley’s where the Marquis of Queensbury rules were strictly obeyed (honest)! of one 4th of July, tying a firecracker to a cats tail . Of eating fancy appetizers at a home on Warm Springs belonging to one of his buddies girlfriends’ father who was a Colonel in the National Guard or something like that. They stuffed their faces with fancy sandwiches that they’d never heard of! He’d always come back at dinnertime though to “sit up and take nourishment” Jim would Never disobey the mother that he also loved so much. For better or worse, he said that she instilled in him that he should remember “where he came from” and not make a fuss and know his place. That might have held him back from achieving some things that he thought he “might could” do.
   Seems like everywhere we went in Boise he’d run into someone who knew him fro’m the “building business”. His work was exemplary and he certainly had the respect of All those who had worked for him. I know that for a fact. Just ask Rick the electrician, Gene the Painter, Ferrell the Plumber, or any number of craftsmen from his era. Then there were some afternoons he and his working buddies would all hang out at the Stage Coach with Willie plying them with prawns so they’d buy more beer. He told me a story that his building friends conspired to keep him from going to Alaska because he was the first, only and best drywall man in Boise. Oh yes, Boise has now lost one of it’s best “real” men.

   I loved your father but knew that trying to live together would shatter what we had. He finally said I was right about that many, many years later. The last time I visited with him in person at his house, I said when I left – that my “dream” is that we will meet again – On a Summer day, I will be sitting on a hillside under a tree in a blue and yellow dress with flowers and he will come driving down a soft dirt path to find me again and we can begin our lives as we would have wished…