By SJ Otto
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 AClockwork 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.