"The Narcotic Farm" by Nancy D. Campbell, JP Olsen, and Luke Walden

The University Press of Kentucky web site describes this book in the following manner:

"The United States Narcotic Farm opened in 1935 in the rolling hills of Kentucky horse country. Portrayed in the press as everything from a "New Deal for the drug addict" to a "million-dollar flophouse for junkies," the sprawling art deco facility was equal parts federal prison, treatment center, working farm, and research laboratory. Its mission was to rehabilitate addicts, who were increasingly criminalized and incarcerated as a result of strict new drug laws, and to discover a cure for opiate addiction. This richly illustrated book offers an important history of this progressive yet ultimately doomed experiment. "Narco," as the locals called it, pioneered new treatments such as prescribing methadone to manage heroin withdrawal and developed drugs that blocked the action of opiates. The coed institution admitted federal prisoners as well as volunteers who checked themselves in for treatment, and through the years it hosted several legendary jazz musicians, including Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins, as well as actor Peter Lorre and writer William S. Burroughs. The facility ultimately closed in 1975 under a cloud as Congress learned that Narco researchers had recruited patients as test subjects for CIA-funded LSD experiments from 1953 to 1962, part of the notorious project MK-Ultra."

In the early 1970's, as a part of my intial involvement in the world of substance abuse treatment, I was an occasional visitor to The Narcotic Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, as it is described in the quotation above. I always went there as part of a group of people, both professionials and patients, who were visiting the facility as an aspect of our involvement either as staff, patients,or volunteers in the field. I was never an employee or a patient/inmate at the facility. By that time, the name of the facility had been changed to the Federal Medical Center Lexington. I often attended group actitivities there and met numerous members of both their professional and patient/inmate populations. It was a fascinating place to visit since it was both a segment of the federal prison system and a treatment and research facility funded by the federal government as a part of the federal response to alcoholism and drug addiction. This book is a fine piece of work, especially in the area of the massive amount of research it required by the three co-authors. They must have spent mulitple years seeking, locating, and compiling the vast amounts of records, photographs, books, media articles, documentaries, and other records, both first hand and secondary, which comprise the book and its supporting documentation. It is somewhat easy for the casual reader to misinterpret this book as a "picture book". While that term can be accurate as a partial descriptor of the book, it is nowhere near a fully accurate assessment of the book. Yes, the book is documented with several hundred excellent and powerful photographs from a wide variety of sources, but is also comprised of thousands of words of written material which is divided between a fine written assessment of the work involved in the institution's work in the twelve areas which comprise the individual chapters, and dozens of lengthy descriptions of the multitudinous photographs which are primarily classic black and white highly professional documentation of the facility and its work with a smattering of more recent color photographs of generally equally professional work.

This book is a fine historical document of a facility which has lasted more than 90 years as both a prison and a treatment and research institution for what were often considered the most severely addicted persons in the nation. In the early days of the facility, its patient population was composed of both convicted felons and patients from the general American public who were allowed to voluntarily admit themselves to the facility as patients seeking treatment for their addictions. My impressions of this book are naturally dual in that I am writing about it as a general reader and also as a reflection of my own personal knowledge which was derived from actual time spent there as a visitor with experience in the field of substance abuse treatment. I strayed into my copy of this book at a local Goodwill Store as I often do with used books in a variety of fields, and my investment of $1.59 was repayed by my initial inspection of the photographs, Contents page, and the Index and Credits. Instantly, I was reminded of the two most interesting men I met during my visits to the facility. One was a somewhat aged but physically and mentally active man in his late fifties who was both a chronic alcoholic and sometime drug abuser who was also an inveterate con artist. He was able to achieve long term periods of abstinence especially at those itmes when he was in a controlled environment. But at those times such as his incarceration and treatment at the Narco Farm, he would invariably be ruminating about his impending release and perpetration of the "perfect con game". He also told a personal narrative of his first incarceration in a state prison in the northeastern United States shortly after he attained adult legal status. He claimed to have been the person who picked up a package containing some firearms which an outside source threw over the prison wall to be carried to the inmate who led one of the worst prison riots in American history. He claimed to have never been an active participant in the actual riot and related attacks on prison staff, and claimed to have never been prosecuted for his part in the riot planning. He always said he had simply been assigned to pick up and transport the package of firearms as the were thrown over the downtown prison's wall and transporting them to the key figure in the riot. During the time I knew this man, he was released from the federal prison system and instantly attained a job as a chef in a large hotel in Lexington. As the book discusses, it was not uncommon for inmates at the facility to be released and remain in Lexington. Almost immediately after his release, this man began the perpetration of his "perfect con game" and was subsequently reincarcerated because of it while claiming to have remained stone cold sober the entire time.

The other man I met at the Narcotic Farm was an early perpetrator of an airliner hijacking. He had been a traveling salesman based in a fairly large southeastern city. He said that he had gotten on a commercial airliner in his home city while in an alcoholic blackout during an extended drunk. Shortly after the plane reached cruising altitude, he said he had told a stewardess "This is a hijacking and I want to go to Cuba." The pilots and other personnnel had pacified him to the best of their ability while communicating with federal law enforcement the entire time. They told him that the plane did not have enough fuel for the long trip to Cuba and they would need to stop somewhere to refuel. Being a somewhat sociable alcoholic, he agreed, and the plane landed at a major airport in another city. When they landed, the crew advised him that none of the other passengers wanted to go to Cuba that day. Once again being a really nice alcoholic, he agreed and allowed the passengers and most of the support staff to leave the plane. The entire story had, of course, been a ruse and as the other passengers completed their deboarding an FBI team boarded the plane and arrested him. This man always swore that he had been in an alcoholic blackout the entire time and remembered nothing of the incident until he regained consciousness in a federal prison holding cell in that second city. He said when he regained consciousness he knew he was in a jail which was unlike any he had ever been in before. He said he could see a television on the wall near the end of the cellblock in which he was being held. He said that the first thing he could remember seeing was himself on the evening local news being led off the plane by two FBI agents. He was convicted of the hijacking but was able with the help of a fine attorney and a good psychiatrist who examined and hypnotized him to convince the necessary authorities that he truly had been in a total blackout due to his alcoholism and had no organic memory of the event. He received a sentence which was shorter than most hijackers at the time and was eventually admitted to the Lexington facility for treatment. I have no idea what happened to this man upon his eventual release from prison.

The Narcotic Farm was often the temporary home and treatment facility for a variety of high profile inmates. It came to be known as a hotbed for jazz music due to the heavy involvement of narcotics in the jazz music scene. The book records that at times aspiring jazz musicians would actually volunteer to become patients at the facility in order to get to play with the actual stars who were incarcerated there at any given time. The book records that:

Chet Baker, Elvin Jones, Stan Levey, Jackie McLean, Red Rodney, Sonny Rollins, Howard McGee, Benny Green, and Tad Dameron.."

were at various time incarcerate there. The Beat Writer William S. Burroughs, Sr. who wrote the classic book "Junkie" did time there as did his son the writer William Lee Burroughs. In addition to "Junkie" by the elder Burroughs, several other well known books were written, at least in part, about time spent at the facility by their authors. Those books include "Kentucky Ham" by William Lee Burroughs, "The Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Girl Addict" edited by Helen MacGill Hughes, and "The Farm" by Clarence L. Cooper, Jr. Recently, the facility received the latest of its celebrity inmates when Joseph “Joe Exotic” Maldonado, the star of the Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was tranferred there. The facility in Lexington is and always was a unique location in the federal prison system. This book is equally unique and well worth reading by a variety of readers including musicians, clean and sober alcoholics and addicts, workers in the addictions and correctinos fields, writers both aspiring and famous, photographers who still love to see exceptional work by others in their chosen profession, and general readers in search of a change of pace in their reading matter.

"Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets" by Stephen Crane

Many time on this blog, I have mentioned that I often buy books at what I refer to as "junk stores", Goodwill, Salvation Army Thrift Stores, etc. I find all kinds of less common books in such places. One of my favorite little places to buy such books is at a little shelf outside the door of the snack shop, gift shop near the entrance to Pavilion H at the University of Kentucky Hospital. It is actually located in the hall between the entrance to Pavilion H, the old main hospital section, and the kiosk where patients sign in. I believe the little gift shop is operated by some arm of the hospital auxillary. The little book shelf operates solely from donated books which must come from a variety of sources including medical staff, auxillary members, patients and their visitors and might contain anything at any given time. All the books sell for some minimal price, usually 75 cents. Due to the fact that my wife has frequent appointments at the Kentucky Clinic across the street, I often take a long walk around the medical buildings in order to get my exercise, cruise past the little bookshelf, about 2 feet wide and 4 shelves high, browse what it contains, and buy anything that interests me. My last purchase there included the book I am writing about now, "Maggie: A Girl Of The Streets" by Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red Badge of Courage" which is a much better known book. The edition of "Maggie..." which I found there is actually A Norton Critical Edition which contains a great deal of critical and historical material in addition to the full text of "Maggie..." which is actually a novella of only 58 pages. But this edition also contains about 200 more pages of the supporting writings, photographs, and maps of New York City in the late 19th century. It was edited by Thomas A. Gullason, Ph. D., an English Professor at the University of Rhode Island. It is an excellent piece of work both from the simple aspect of being a fine novella by one of America's best early novelists, and by virtue of being a fine piece of editorial work by someone who clearly understood his materieal well. The book was originally published in 1893 and the text Dr. Gullason used is that original text. He has wisely not fiddled with the language of the time, has inserted numerous and sometimes voluminous footnotes to provide extensive information about the language used, geography at times, and other aspects of life in New York City in the late 19th century. I read the book with my wife Candice as we do nearly every day. I read aloud from our chosen book as she washes our breakfast dishes. When she finishes, I rinse the dishes. We take turns choosing the books we read and it is an exercise that works well for us in terms of both literature and personal relationship. This was obviously a fast read, in terms of the text of novella alone. In light of its brevity, it was a very nice book to read. Crane's writing does use some now antiquated words at times but he was a fine novelist as anyone knows who has ever read "The Red Badge of Courage". His writing style was actually much more modern in nature than most of his peers at the time. The novella still stands up to just about anything from any modern author in today's times. Maggie is the oldest daughter of a poor, Irish, working class family living in an early tenement in New York. Her mother is an abusive, alcoholic. Her father is an abusive, heavy drinking wagon driver in the streets of the city. Her brother Jimmie is a street urchin with a violent nature. The entire family and every one around them is simply striving to stay alive in a very hostile environment. As Maggie matures into a young woman, she becomes enamored with a friend of her brother named Pete who is a bartender and passes himself off as being much more than he actually is in terms of his money, lifestyle, worldly ways, etc. Maggie falls for Pete, leaves home to be with him after a particularly violent incident with her mother. She is wined and dined by Pete early in their relationship, taken to concerts, bars, and other forms of entertainment and comes to believe that Pete will improve her life. As the novella progresses, it becomes apparent that Pete is a womanizer who is totally in everything purely for his own satisfaction. Eventually, Maggie leaves Pete after he tires of her and moves on with an older woman whom he considers more interesting, charming, and attractive. Maggis is rejected by her mother and the family as a "fallen woman", and dies on the streets. It is obviously a very dark novella filled with poverty, alcoholism, womanizing, prejudice toward minorities, and nearly everything negative that New York offered in the 1890's. But it is a fine novella and well worth reading. If you can find a copy, get it, read it, and come to understand the poverty that immigrant working class families suffered in the early days of our country. And, in light of the recent hatred, animosity, and aggression toward the immigrants who once were and still are the real builders of our country, it is fine novella to read in today's politically disastrous times.

Jim Ferrell, Appalachian Hero

When I made the decision to write on this blog about Appalachian Heroes, I made a sizable list of men and women who had done admirable work in the area to write about.  I also began to think about several people I have known who deserved recognition for their lives but have generally had none.  One of the first to make that list was James G. "Jim" Ferrell of Chapmanville, West Virginia.  Jim was well known in the Logan County area for many years. Jim was born March 15, 1924, in Chapmanville, West Virginia, and died in Logan, West Virginia, on February 15, 2004.  He lived the great majority of his life in or around Chapmanville except for a few years when he moved to Cleveland Ohio to find work after going out of business in a store he had owned for many years.  Jim later returned to Logan County and worked for the state of West Virginia until he retired as a wage bond enforcement officer for the West Virginia Department of Labor.  A major portion of that job involved enforcing state laws regarding the posting of wage bonds by coal companies intended to prevent them from going out of business without miners being paid.  Jim took his job seriously and worked diligently to assure that the requirements were met so that miners and their families never had to face unemployment without being paid for their work.  It was common for "punch mines", small contractors operating in risky leases owned by large companies, to go out of business overnight and leave crews unpaid much like circumstances had been many years before union activity and public protests caused the laws to be changed.  Due to his diligence,   Jim often bore the brunt of the anger of shady coal operators and, I believe, of the political appointees in Charleston who ran the Department of Labor. 

Jim Ferrell was the best friend I ever had.  Rarely does a day go by that I don't think of something he said or something I learned from him.  My father, Ballard Hicks, who also ran a country store in Floyd and Knott Counties in Kentucky, died when I was 20 years old.  I met Jim many years later when I was about 33 and knew him until his death.  In many ways, Jim was a second father to me.  He was one of the kindest, most considerate, caring, and giving human beings I have ever known.  He was also one of the funniest and loved to tell stories.  Many of his stories were based on self deprecating humor and his history of heavy drinking before he achieved long term sobriety which continued nearly thirty years to the day of his death. I wish I could remember every story I have ever heard from him.  Hopefully, I can fit a few of his favorites into this piece.  Jim was an amazing man who loved and cared about many things.  The most important things in Jim's life were sobriety ( he was a recovered alcoholic) and his wife Phyllis.  After that came his family, friends, the Democratic party, Irish culture and history, community service, golf, bowling, bocce ball, and story telling. 

Jim was a member of a relatively large Irish Catholic family and always said his mother had believed "there are only two kinds of people: the Irish and those who wish they were Irish."  Jim's mother was a school teacher in the Logan County school system and nearly every one of her children graduated from college.  Many of her grandchildren are doctors, lawyers, engineers, or teachers.  Jim was born a twin along with his brother Pete.  At some time during childhood, Jim lost an eye to an injury and was one eyed most of his life.  This was generally not a problem except when World War II came along.  Both Jim and Pete were attending West Virginia University when Pearl Harbor was bombed.  Pete, who was in engineering school, immediately joined the military.  Jim, who was a pre-law student,  also volunteered and was rejected due to the eye.  He kept volunteering through different branches until he got to the Army. He said at the Army physical the eye exams were being performed in a hallway with the recruits standing in line in a perpendicular hall.  He always said that he managed to sneak and peek around the corner and memorize the first several lines of the eye chart.  He passed the test and was inducted.  He made it through basic training and was sent to advanced individual training as a head gunner in an artillery unit.  After finishing this training, he was sent to a pre-deployment physical and as he put it "the doctor was an old officer and he caught me about my bad eye."  Jim said the doctor reached for a form to sign to muster him out due to disability.  Jim began to beg and said, "Doc, I may be blind in that eye.  But I'm the best gunner in this unit and my twin brother is over there fighting and I want to go too."  Jim said the doctor hesitated a few moments and said "Son, if you want to go that bad, I'll let you", and tore up the form.  Jim was then sent to the island hopping campaign in the South Pacific where the US fought the Japanese over the ocean island by island until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He would rarely eat canned corn and always said that during that military campaign he had been under constant artillery fire for forty days.  During that time, hot meals weren't possible and he said he had bribed a company cook to give him an institutional size can of corn each day because he liked corn and would eat it cold. But after forty days, he said he didn't eat corn again for several years and only rarely ate it for the rest of his life. 

Another story about Jim Ferrell and food which I will never forget involves pizza. Jim loved pizza and we often went to Pizza Hut in Stollings, W. V., on Saturday nights.  Jim would order his pizza and then begin to complain about "all the money these people make off of a little bread dough and tomato sauce".  Nearly every time I eat pizza I remember that habit.  He also had a strange quirk in his face which he said was due to a botched facial surgery in the past.  He claimed that the surgeon had damaged some facial nerves and as a result, when he was eating something he enjoyed, he would sweat along one side of his face in the same way most people salivate.  He would eat with one hand and wipe sweat with the other.  It was always easy to know when he was enjoying his food. 

One of Jim's favorite stories to tell on himself involved food and drinking in the days long before he achieved sobriety. It was also during the time before Jim and Phyllis were married.  He owned a store in Chapmanville and lived in an apartment over the store.  He said that he was drunk in the store one day and decided that he wanted to have some canned chili.  Jim never knew how to boil water.  But he said he got a can of chili off the store shelf, closed the store, and staggered up the stairs to his apartment.  He said he had no idea how to cook the chili and placed the unopened can in a sauce pan full of water on the stove and proceeded to pass out on the couch.  Shortly thereafter, the can exploded when the pan boiled dry.  Jim said chili with beans was all over the kitchen walls and ceiling.  He said he just turned the burner off, put the remains of the can in the garbage, and went on about his business.   Jim said the next day he was sitting in the store and heard his regular cleaning woman going up the stairs to the apartment.  Just a minute or two later, he heard her slam the apartment door and come running down the stairs.  She came running into the store and said, "Jim, I have cleaned up everything in the world behind you, but there is no way I am going to clean crap off the ceiling. How in the world did you get crap on the ceiling? "  Somehow he managed to convince her that the ceiling only contained chili and she stayed on the job. 

Another of Jim's favorite stories to tell on himself involved both his drinking and the fact that he was one of the first people in West Virginia to own a Volkswagen.  Jim nearly always drove Volkswagens right up to the last car he owned which was a GM product he had bought for Phyllis because she refused to drive or ride in his Volkswagens.  Jim always said he had been on a major drunk once in Chapmanville  and went into what must have been a serious and extended blackout.  He said the last thing he remembered was drinking in Chapmanville and the next thing he remembered was coming out of a blackout and hearing Spanish all around him.  He was in Juarez Mexico and actually still had the Volkswagen within sight.  He said he immediately wondered what was going on at his store so he went to a pay phone and called collect to the store.  The highly dependable woman who worked for him took the call and naturally asked "Jim, where are you?"  Apparently, she could also hear the Spanish in the background.  Jim said he told her "Just decided to take a little trip.  You just take care of things and I'll be home in a few days."  He said that he had no idea how he got to Juarez but that the trip back to Chapmanville was the worst few days in his life driving across the desert Southwest in a Volkswagen with no heat or air conditioning. 

During the early years that I knew Jim, I was a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman for Electrolux in Logan.  I worked all over several counties and often met people who would know Jim.  Once I ran into one of his old friends who said, "I've got something I need to show you".  He went into the house and brought out an old campaign poster of Jim running for magistrate and the photo showed Jim riding a mule.  The friend said, "I always called my mule Mr. Democrat and when Jim started running I told him he ought to put out posters showing him riding my mule with the slogan "Vote for Jim Ferrell, Mr. Democrat's friend" and that's what he did."  The man said the photo was actually shot on Stratton street near the court house during a meet and greet for candidates.  He and Jim actually loaded the mule in a truck and hauled him from Chapmanville to Logan and Jim rode him around town meeting and greeting the voters. 

Jim lost that election by a wide margin because Logan County practiced what is known as "slate politics".  A local political power would put together a complete ticket for every race on the ballot and each candidate would generally be required to pay the head rat a lump sum in order to be on the slate.  Then paid voter haulers and vote buyers would haul people to the polls.  They would pay the voter before they went in and hand them a slate, much like a bookmark, with the names of the selected candidates.  Jim always said a distant relative of his was running the slate that year and asked him $40,000 to put him on the slate for a job that payed about $10,000 a year. Jim didn't have the money, wasn't put on the slate, and lost the race. I doubt if he would have paid the money if he had it.  Jim would always become angry any time that man's name was mentioned and said that his mother, when she was a teacher, "had walked way up to the head of a holler and talked him into going to school when he was about 12 years old and hadn't been to school a day in his life. If it hadn't been for my mother, he couldn't even read and write."  He never got over that slight.  But, at a time when I was looking for a job, Jim still took me to that man's house to try to get me a politically connected job.  It didn't work.  But, to Jim's satisfaction, the man was eventually convicted of voter fraud after years in power. 

Jim and I also knew another Logan County politician who was eventually convicted of a similar political corruption charge who also claimed to be a sober alcoholic.  He would often be seen in public under the influence of pills and, to my knowledge, died after serving time in Federal Prison without ever being sober.  This man's dishonesty about sobriety always made Jim very angry and he never cared for the man.  Jim never made any attempt to hide the fact that he had been an alcoholic and had no respect for anyone else who lied about their own substance abuse or sobriety. Another of our close friends, was convicted of a bribery charge but was always sober to our knowledge.  Jim never shunned that man because he was a sober alcoholic who made a mistake.  In fact, the three of us spent several days traveling back and forth to another part of the state when someone else close to Jim was on trial.  Jim Ferrell would always go out of his way to help family and friends.  I have also seen him, at times, helping total strangers who appeared to be honestly in need. I have seen him contribute money to charity at times when he needed it more than some of the people who benefitted from it.  He was a lifetime member of the Kiwanis Club and also showed up anywhere anyone asked him to go to help a good cause. 

Jim was a member of the Catholic church and regularly attended mass with Phyllis.  However, I believe he was really a lapsed Catholic and actually didn't like to attend church.  But because he loved Phyllis, he always went to mass with her.  He was also active in church activities and fund raising.  Jim also served several years as a member of the board of directors of the Chapmanville Library.  Due primarily to Jim's intercession on their behalf, the local AA group was allowed to meet in the library for many years.  Jim loved to do work which he felt could help alcoholics and addicts. 

During his younger years, Jim owned two stores in Chapmanville as well as holding a taxi franchise.  When Jim lost his business and left for Cleveland to work, he sold the store to a woman who had worked for him for many years and left the taxi business in the hands of a man who was apparently bootlegging with the taxi franchise in Jim's name.  A friend called him in Cleveland and told him he needed to get rid of the franchise before he took the blame for the bootlegging.  Jim cancelled the franchise.  The story he told about going out of business and going to Cleveland was always the same and Jim never varnished the truth.  He said that in the early days of the food stamp program he would allow customers who received food stamps to charge at the store and pay him in food stamps when they received them.  He also often sold unapproved items for food stamps.  This was a common practice for small store owners at that time and I have known several, including my own parents, besides Jim who were caught in the practice.  Jim said that on the first of the month he would leave the people who worked for him to run the front of the store.  He would take the credit accounts and go to a dry goods table in the back of the store where he sat and collected off the customers who came in with their food stamps.  One month on the first, Jim said he noticed a stranger in the store but kept doing business. He said, "I had my books and several thousand dollars in food stamps stacked on that dry goods table."  The man watched for a few minutes and came back to the table.  He flashed a badge and introduced himself as a USDA agent.  Jim said the man said, "I guess you know I've got you."  Jim always said that he told the man, "All I have in the world is on that table.  I promise you if you walk out of here you can come back next month and somebody else will own this store."  Jim said the man paused to think for a few moments and finally said "OK", and walked out of the store.  Jim sold the business and went to Cleveland.  In a genuine incident of irony, just a few weeks later Jim had a job as an eligibility worker at the food stamp office in Cleveland where he worked until he retired to come home to Chapmanville. 

During that time in Cleveland, Jim met and eventually married Phyllis.  He always said that she wouldn't marry him until he achieved some long term sobriety.  It is my belief that support from Phyllis made it possible for Jim to become and stay sober.  Although they were both middle aged by the time they married, they were genuinely in love until their deaths.  Neither of them had been married before and they had no children. Phyllis worked as a legal secretary and they had a loyal group of friends in Logan County who loved them both.  They were active in the church, local charities, the Kiwanis Club, the Chapmanville Country Club, and several other worthwhile activities.  When he wasn't working or performing charitable work, Jim loved to play golf, bocce ball, and bowling. He was never a good athlete and his blind eye made matters worse.  But not long before he became unable to golf, Jim managed to get his first hole in one on a short par three at Chapmanville. 

I never golfed in my life and had no real interest in it.  But once Jim asked me to join him on the practice tee at Chapmanville "and we'll hit a bucket of balls.  When you can hit one a little piece, we'll go out and play nine holes."  I agreed and we took the clubs and balls to the practice tee.  I hacked and beat and chopped for a while and never hit a ball 30 yards.  Jim finally just reached in his pocket and handed me his Volkswagen keys and said, "Come back in about 2 hours and go to the clubhouse.  Order anything you want and sign my name to the ticket."  That's what I did and Jim never asked me to go golfing again. 

But, for several years, Jim, myself, and three other friends had a bowling team in a Thursday night men's handicap league at Chapmanville.  We were never good.  Sometimes, we weren't even ordinary.  Most seasons, we finished at the top of the bottom half of the league.  But we had a lot of fun and provided some entertainment for the better bowlers.  Jim also began to play bocce ball at Chief Logan Park very late in his life with a group of elderly men, mostly Italian Americans.  He came to love the game.  In the last several years of his life, his vision became so bad he was nearly legally blind.  But, he never gave up any of the three sports.  He loved the games themselves, the physical activity, and, most of all, the socialization they provided. 

Jim Ferrell was a fallible, funny, generous, loving human being.  After he became sober, he worked every day of his life to be the best human being he could be and to make the world a better place.  He always tried to know about important causes in the world and to do what he could to improve any situation he encountered.  Jim spent his life giving away much of what he earned.  It made him happy and gave him a sense of self worth.  Jim Ferrell was one of the finest human beings I have ever known.  Jim Ferrell was an Appalachian Hero.