Jim Weaver - A Good Guy

Jim Weaver passed away last month, almost 90 years young, and I went to his funeral.  It was a full house at St Mary’s and a who’s who of old time Park City people, possibly with some old miners and big landowners, natives, and interlopers.  

Jim was born in a small house above Main Street in 1932 and lived there his entire life, except for a stint in the Navy and a few fishing trips in the Uintas.  He worked his early years in the mines at many jobs and shifts and eventually for G.E. for many years. He was the silent Sacristan at St Mary’s for countless years, shoveling more snow than god.  He was a fixture up on Main Street and a pillar in this community.  He was a good guy.

I attended the entire funeral Mass for Jim because he used to bust me for trying to leave church early, back in the day, and would say it was ‘amateur hour’ whenever I did attend.  He would stand away from me, off to the side, holding an imaginary lightning rod, ‘just in case’.  

I liked sitting there at the funeral in the warm February sun looking up at the snow and terrain in White Pine Canyon as his son Clint told a story of Jim getting stuck up there one winter and having to walk home in the dark, uphill, both ways.  It was a long way to Main Street back then and White Pine was the wilderness.

I imagined the Park City that Jim grew up in and told us about while drinking beer with him next door to his house on Peter Marth’s porch above Main Street.  Jim’s aunt and cousins originally lived in Peter’s house, so it was a family affair for them up there for many years.  They visited the old homestead last year and cried when Peter invited them inside for a nostalgic look around.

 I could imagine him walking past the Egyptian Theatre, China Bridge or the Cat houses in Swede alley on his way home from school, or skinny dipping or fishing in the lakes above Gaurdsman’s pass.  He loved to fish and he knew all the names of Uinta lakes and he knew Utah water and who the big irrigators were.  He also loved Utah, BYU and Notre Dame Football and loved to talk about those team’s past and futures.

I imagined how much change Jim had seen in Park City, being born in the second or third Silver Mining boom, only to have silver devalued and the boom turn to bust once again.  Growing up here with barely dependable water or electricity or heat when the town stopped at Squatters Brew Pub and the ride to SLC was an adventure.  Jim said they would only send snow plows up from Salt Lake or the County once a week back then and it piled up higher than a man on a horse.  There was limited skiing in Deer Valley but it was not with Epic Passes or epicurean delights.  There were times when the town was listed in the Ghost Towns of the West and things got pretty bleak. 

But Jim was a sticker and he stayed here to raise his family.  Things started to turn in the 60’s with the new ski resort and the hippies moved in and did battle with the miners for a few years before a truce was reached.  Jim was conservative but loved the new people and he laughed at the hippies and the skiers in their funny clothes.  In the 70s and 80s the yuppies came and started Park West, Deer Valley and bigger development.  The 90s brought the millionaires and 02 brought the Olympics.  Jim welcomed them all with open arms.  By the 10s and 20s the billionaires were pushing out the millionaires but Jim kept his simple house on top of Main Street and watched it all go down, reserving judgement with fascination and humor, enjoying the changes and the new people as they came.

Jim was a good example for us all; to step back and away from our historical, personal perspective and appreciate this place and its people for what it is.    We do what we can to keep it good but welcome new people with different ideas on how to make it great.  Who knows who is right and wrong, the unintended consequences of our decisions or how things will work out in 90 years.  Someone asked me recently, ‘how long have you lived here’, and my reply was, ‘who cares’.  Jim didn’t and that’s what made him unique.  He was a good guy.