On Tuesday, I received a phone call from my old friend, and former TMCA member, Birgit Green. Even though she and her husband Jay had sold their sailboat (s/v Gugi) and moved around 2005 from their SeaGate condo up to a brand-new Victorian-style house that Jay had designed in the Heights, I had for some time kept in touch with them, occasionally meeting them for dinner at some Heights venue or at their wonderful house. But then in 2011, they sold that house and moved far away from all water, to Praha, a small rural community outside of Flatonia, Texas, and sadly, we had not kept in touch since!
Birgit’s number was still in my phone; however, so when the phone rang I was excited to be hearing from her! But unfortunately she had some very sad news to relate to me, and that was that Jay had passed away the previous week. As with any such call that one receives, I was stunned!! And of course, I have been thinking about him ever since!
Jay and Birgit joined TMCA in I think 1999. They originally had a Hunter 30 named “Corsair Tide”, and then soon thereafter a Hunter 34 named “Joint Venture”. And then just a year or so after that they moved up once again to a Hunter 380 which, as noted above, they named “Gugi”. (This was also Birgit’s nickname.) But since they were already gone from TMCA just a few years later, there are probably not too many active members who even remember them at this point!
I told Birgit that I had recently done a remembrance posting upon the passing of another TMCA member, and that I would certainly do the same for Jay. So today I have spent a couple of hours going through all of the old TMCA photos that I have in my laptop.
I am obviously very sorry that I did not keep in touch with these old friends over the past several years! Maybe there is a lesson there for us all to take to heart!
Fair winds Jay, ... you are definitely remembered!
Philip Kropf , s/v Silhouette
"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust our sails."