• In memory •
[2½ MIN READ]
I met James Craig not that long after I started running with Shawmont Running Club in 2014. He was excellent company and it didn’t take long for us to discover 2 interesting, preexisting points of connection. When he learned that I worked (then) for Arcadia University, he wondered if I knew his wife Betty. As fortune would have it, I did. We both worked with Asian students and collaborated to serve them several times, her on the English-language side (writing, in particular) and I on the library side (research, in particular). Then he learned that my wife worked for Magallen Health Services. As fortune would have it, he had too, a bunch of years before.
(L-R: CtCloser, Alan Bravo, Hap, All That Jaz [Trail name in training: AKA James, JC], Jamie, Teddio, Quietman Tom)
(Shawmont Running Club 1/29/24 Run [ShawmontRunningClub.com])
James ran with SRC frequently but, given that my attendance was somewhere around 50:50, we could go for a while without running together. Once, early on, we saw each other after a few months had passed. Such an impression did our relationship already make on me that I bubbled over with excitement to see him. I rushed over and gave him a bear hug before he could say anything more than “oof.” That expression might have been slightly unilateral and I never did it again, but we always said hi with enthusiasm and returned to conversation easily.
His favorite distance was the half marathon and he consistently wore the shirt for the ones he most recently did as evidence. He would report on one he did recently any number of places around the country, particularly up around the Boston area where his daughter and family were living.
On the trail his name was always just James. He would occasionally get referenced as JC in writing (He’s the reason why the trail name for KayCee’s daughter Julianna is “JulCee” [ShawmontRunningClub.com]), but he thought that lacked some originality. His alternative was Jaz, because it was the easy pronunciation of the standard abbreviation of that name (FYI: Jas.). I always translated it “All that Jaz” in my writing for the club.
Someone else will craft a comprehensive and proper remembrance of him, so accept this one for the personal piece that it is. One that bubbled out of my grief when we all learned in last week’s newsletter about his passing.
He ran his last half, The Haunted Hustle, in October near Madison, Wisconsin where his son lives. In November, while traveling in Boston, he became ill suddenly and was diagnosed with an aggressive lymphoma. He ran five miles the day before a nine-hour surgery. Betty shared that she and their daughter and son kept holding out confidence he would rally. She could barely restrain him from trying to get out for another run. They were all present on Saturday, 1/24 at noon, when he passed on.
Teddio captured a running club’s mood when he texted, “He was a good friend. I’m going to miss him.”
The family will have a life celebration for him in the spring (when the weather is more accommodating) that Betty reports SRC will receive an invitation to attend.
–CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat #dothedue (iCandybyWangC.com)
FINE PRINT *Details shared with permission. ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 1/31/26), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination with added caption and enumeration.
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