We're Going the Wrong Way Again, Jim

A liberal Catholic Yankee city boy living in an ultraconservative back-country Georgia Baptist fundamentalist environment, Jim Hite could have been a disgruntled curmudgeon. He was not. There was never an optimist who had the outlook he had. And he shared it with everyone he came in contact with. In his multicareer life, he touched people from many backgrounds different from his own. His time in the mega high school (Central Catholic in Toledo), his seminary life in Cincinnati, and his short time in the priesthood in Detroit and in South Georgia prepared him for handling unexpected relationshipsone of which led to a marriage. Following that, fitting in became a career of its own. But it was in his second marriage that he dared to branch out, taking on challenges that he had unwittingly put on hold for the duration of the first. Jim and Joyce finished their teaching careers and embarked on a life which could not be contained in one town, one state, or even one country. They chased after goals they had thought they could never achieve, and then realized it was the chase that was more important than the finish line. They learned that divergent personalities could merge successfully and often compared their relationship to a rubber band which, though stretched, would always return to its original shape. And after Jim's death, Joyce thought all his friends should know how that relationship had evolved.