A good friend of mine died yesterday, Jim
Erickson. He was something of a local celebrity. He used to do commercials, everything from
used cars to potato chips. He used to introduce movies and TV shows. He was
also an English language professor at Wichita State University (WSU). He also
did movie reviews.
He was known to a lot of folks as “Old Flick.” At the KMUW radio
station where he did movie reviews. I discussed movies with him many times. We
did not always see eye to eye. For example on such movies A Clockwork Orange,
he didn’t like that movie and I did. I liked The
Killing Fields. He did not. He
said they used a lot of tricks they got from other movies to make the battle
scenes in The Killing Fields. He was
very picky.
We agreed more on politics. While I’m a Marxist/ Maoist, he
was more of a liberal. We despised many of the same politicians, such as Ronald
Reagan and both Bushes.[1] But
we occasionally did not see things the same. I had a Maoist friend, Charles
Blackmon,
who is dead now, who at one time told Erickson that he admired a
group of Maoist guerrillas, in a Latin American country, who did the local
women, in a town, a favor and executed some prostitutes. Erickson was horrified
at the idea. I did agree with him that executing prostitutes was a terrible
idea. But he never wanted to see my Maoist friend again. I was willing to
overlook that issue and Chuck and I stayed friends until he died. Erickson said
he never wanted to see him again.
As an English professor Erickson threw a lot of students off,
because he was very hard on them. Many thought he would be a pushover since he
seemed so lackadaisical on TV, as his various personalities.
But he took his work as a professor very seriously.
We haven’t had a party at my house in many years, but when we did
we often invited Erickson. He often came early or on time. We considered him
eccentric. He was one of a kind. My wife, Cam Gentry, liked knowing him. She
also joked about the shorts and other close he used to wear when he visited the
WSU library.[2]
We also went to his parties. He used to have about four a year.
Then after a while he only had one a year and that was his Halloween Party. I
used to look forward to his Halloween Party because I had many friends I only
met once a year at this party. Every year I came up with an elaborate costume.
A few years ago he stopped having all of his parties. He kept complaining
that people stole things from him. He had some really good antiques and
collectables of all kinds. He had all kinds of movie paraphernalia and souvenirs.
So I can understand why he hated it when someone took off with his things.
Erickson liked drinking for many years. One year the press came to
his house before one of his parties and he was so drunk they couldn’t use the
interview. Shortly after that he quit drinking. He told me that he kept reading
these pamphlets on how to tell if you drink too much. He decided he would just
quit drinking and he no longer had that problem to worry about.
He told someone in a press interview that he avoided relationships
with women because he didn’t like the pain of breaking up with someone.
Erickson was a proud supporter of Women’s rights and he had a good relationship
with the local National Organization for Women.
He supported many liberal causes and he used to wear a lot of different buttons
on those various issues.
Erickson was quite a few years older than me. But all people die
sooner or later. I knew that some day we would have to see Erickson’s life come
to an end. That happened Wednesday morning. I will miss him. Many of us will.
We all enjoyed his company and we were always glad when he came to our parties.
Any party we have now will be without him and we will miss him.
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