BY JOHN H. WALKER
L’Observateur

The first time I saw Jack Stratas, I thought he was a funny little man. He had come into the newsroom of the Thomasville Times in Thomasville, N.C. (where they once made great furniture) to deliver a column to lifestyle editor Ann Beard. Ann brought Jack across the office to meet me, starting the introduction with something like, “I thought you’d want to meet another Mississippian, especially so far from home.”

Jack, who had once been a runner, was slightly built and had that olive complexion that came from his Greek ancestry. He had had back surgery and walked with a bit of a limp and a little slump. His body was a bit worn down, but there was nothing wrong with his mind or his wit.

As it turned out, he and I had more in common than just being from Mississippi. He had majored in journalism at Southern Mississippi and I had done the same at Delta State … we both had watched Ray Guy punt the football and pitch no-hitters … and we both had gone into the newspaper business and had both been editors. Jack’s move from a newspaper copy desk to a United Methodist pulpit got him away from the presses, but he still had ink coursing through his veins and we were both Methodists, as my great-great-grandfather had been one of the first Methodist circuit riders in Mississippi.

And as it turned out, Jack and I shared another couple of loves — trains and anything Mississippi State. We loved real trains and we loved toy trains. We loved to ride trains and to look at them. And while State didn’t give us nearly enough to cheer about over the years, we did have our moments … the last coming in the SEC tournament where the Bulldogs went four-for-four and won the title.

Jack was in my office the day my wife came in to tell me the doctor had called to let us know I had cancer. He was there every step of the way after that day, too. Even after the Methodist Church moved him, he would come visit me whenever the Big C threw me a curve ball and I would wind up in the hospital. He did that even when my own minister wouldn’t visit his sick and shut-ins.

Jack wasn’t a preacher for the wealthy. His church … the church he got me to visit just to hear him preach, was far too big for its aging congregation. He had been a circuit-rider type minister, with four rural churches and wound up with Thomasville’s First Methodist before it was over with … peeling paint, worn carpet, dying furnace, dying congregation and all.

But that little church prospered under Jack. He fought for it until it came time for him to move on, and he told his bishop that he needed to go. He preached at East Bend until his body let him down one Sunday, collapsing in the pulpit. He fought, and was back in time to hold a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Just as I had in Thomasville, I went and sat on a pew as people came and went … introduced to all of them and made to feel at home. We were there when he preached his final service, too, and helped he and Jeannette when they moved out of the parsonage and back to Denton, where he had pastored his first church.

He and I did many things together … driving 15 hours roundtrip to watch State lose to Vandy in the SEC tournament … going to train shows and riding trains, but we tried to be there for one another … not just as friends, but as Christian brothers. Jack, you see, got me back into the church from which I had strayed. We argued like brothers and we laughed like brothers and we worried about our church in the same manner.

Tuesday morning, about the time I had a dream that he and I were on our way to a train show, Jack passed away. And as a train passes my office, I can see Jack pointing at the cars and talking about the paint schemes … I can hear his silly little laugh and I know he feels no more pain from that damnable cancer that took his body from him and he from us. After four years, the Lord called him home and his suffering ended.

Jack will be buried in Starkville, Miss. in the Greek corner of the cemetery next to his mother. His body has gone home to Starkville and his spirit has gone home to the Lord.

Yes, Jack Stratas WAS a hilariously funny little man … and I’m thankful he was my friend.

(John H. Walker is editor and publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at 652-9545 or john.walker@wickcommunications.com.)