Jay Conrad Schweitzer

My name is Joe.

Thank you for coming, including those who didn't know Jay but are here supporting our family. Thank you Tricia for conducting the service. Thank you Mary Jo and Jerry for coordinating the reception. Thanks to Graham Construction for being to understanding and gracious these past few weeks.

Well...This really sucks!

Jay was my little brother. He was born in Palo Alto, California in 1951 and immediately got all my parent's attention. I'm not bitter, though.

Growing up, Jay was the normal sidekick brother you hear about all the time. Kind of a pain to have around, but I did because he would do anything I told him to. He was, however, accident prone. He broke his arm as an infant squirming out of Dad's hands. He drank paint thinner at 2 thinking it was water in a can. There were always various bumps, scratches, and bruises on him. In this day and age, people would probably call CPS. He also liked to take things apart. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out how to put them back together so they worked again. Of course because of these traits, you can imagine our horror when, as an adult, he decided to go work in the construction industry. We had visions of body parts left in half-finished buildings all over town!

In 1955, sister Teri was born and got all our parent's attention. But we weren't bitter.

We spent our childhood in Southern California playing baseball, going to the beach, visiting Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, exploring the Olive Tree Forest that bordered our housing development, building Christmas tree forts in our backyard by rounding up our neighbor's trees when they put them out for trash collection. The drivers must have wondered where all the naked trees came from when we put them back around the neighborhood about June.

Dad always called Jay "Tookie or "Took" or "The Tookster". And because he couldn't go into a store without touching things, Mom and Dad also called him "Fingers" or Fingers Magooch." Even now, Jay always clasped his hands behind his back when in a store, just as he had been admonished to do by our mother years ago.

In the mid-60's, we moved to the Seattle area where Jay went to junior high and three years at Sammamish. He spent a year in Alaska where he graduated from high school, and then back to Washington to go to college and start a family. He has a son, Ian, and a daughter, Brande, who will miss him very much. He was their teacher, mentor, friend, and foundation. He met Angie in 1988. He loved her and her children over these many years.

Jay could do some amazing things. He could turn his eyelids inside out - a skill he taught to every child he met. He could grow a beard at a young age that our dad, upon seeing it for the first time exclaimed, "You look like an armpit with teeth!" He could sleep with his eyes open which really freaked out my wife, Karen, when he lived with us for a while. He could eat canned food or creamed soups cold, out of a can, standing over the kitchen sink and call that dinner. Brande at one point bought him a cookbook titled, "A Man, A Can, and A Microwave." He could tell you the plot lines and detail the ethical dilemmas of every Star Trek episode. He could come up with the darnedest logical conspiracy theories. He confided in me while he was in the hospital that he did this mostly to see people's reactions. He rarely believed them himself.

And he could work. He was a hardworking guy who thought nothing of 12-14 hour days, six - sometimes seven - days a week. He could chew people out like nobody's business using every swear word invented and some they haven't thought of yet. He usually got his message across. He wanted everyone to be as committed as he was to getting the job done right, on time, and on budget (with apologies to this darn firehouse project). On the job he was a hard working hardass. But he loved it and he loved creating something that would last. Karen and I often drive by some of past projects of his and I say, "Jay built that." Karen sighs and says, "Yes, I know." It's become kind of a running joke.

Jay was also a funny guy - he laughed easily and loved irony. He often felt a little out of sync with things but loved to joke about it. He told me once, "Just my luck. I'm married during the sexual revolution and single now that there is AIDS."

About day four in the hospital he gave me one of the biggest laughs ever. He wasn't allowed to eat and hadn't been allowed to eat for four days before the surgery. The nurses always came in and asked if he needed anything. He would say "FOOD" and they'd say, "not yet." This one very small nurse had just told him no and he said, "I'm so hungry, you're starting to look good." I might just put you on the rotisserie and eat you, maybe with some sauce." I cracked up and she cracked up and left and he deadpanned to me and raised that one eyebrow they way he could and said, "I'm serious."

Jay loved to hunt and fish. He spent countless hours in younger days tromping around in the woods with his buddy, Bill. They'd camp, drink, and swap stories. Not sure if they did much hunting.

He went to Alaska for many years with a group of us and throughly let loose and enjoyed himself. I remember one morning after a particular hard night of drinking. I moved his fish boxes that held a week's worth of salmon and when he couldn't find them, I told him he gave them away the night before to someone who hadn't caught as much. He said, "That was nice of me." But we all couldn't hold in the laughter, so the joke didn't last long. But it was funny.

I have to admit, I teased Jay quite a bit. It's kinda my thing and he was always the perfect foil. I'll never forget when he and bob Arens missed the flight to our Alaska fishing trip - they had a different flight than the rest of us - and he got all serious to Bob. "You call Joe. I'm not calling him - he'll give me nothing but grief." But I found out and I did.

He was also a wildman with a fishing pole in his hand. Being left handed, once again he was slightly out of sync. The fist year he was in Alaska, Mark Evanson thought Jay was gonna kill him with his sidearm casts. Jay said to me, "I don't think Mark likes me - he always moves when I fish by him." Being Mr. Sensitive I replied, "No, Jake, he likes you fine. He just doesn't want to get a #5 orange and silver lure in his left ear."

But as rough as some people thought he was, Jay was really a softie. He loved roses, beautiful harp music, calligraphy, crystal.

He was always sensitive to other's pain, even as a child. He would offer his help or encouragement whenever someone needed it. Kevin Hegge, one of his roommates, told me he always liked to bounce stuff off Jay to get a fresh, no nonsense point of view.

He loved his children, his family, Angie and her children, and many of you who are here today.

When I look out at his family and friends and co-workers, I can turn to Karen like I always do and point and say, "Jay built that."

If he were here he'd say, "Live Long and Prosper."

I love you, Jay.