A Few Words at Jim Kerwin's  Funeral
Jim Pallas

My wife Janet and I have known Florence since the 1950s when we were all teenagers at Detroit's Southeastern High school together.  And Janet and Florence shared an apartment on Wayne State's campus on 910 West Kirby out between the mud lots and the Lodge.

I met Kerwin only after he and Flo married so I didn't know him as long or as well as some others here today.  And I'm poorer for it. 

Florence asked me to say a few words about a project I involved Kerwin in.

I'm an artist and one of the things I do is make hitchhikers.  I choose a live person and tell them that I want to make a hitchhiker of them.  I explain that a hitchhiker is a life sized, plywood cut out on a stand, painted to look as much like them as I can.  I'm not a painter but occasionally I can get a likeness.  When I'm done they will have the hitchhiker to enjoy for one year after which they have to write something - anything- one the back and abandon it.  I collect the photos and any other documents and put them in a notebook.  It's around here somewhere.

Kerwin knew all this.  He had already watched my make a few of these.  In fact he was instrumental in getting his friend, Sonny Eliot, to agree to be the subject of one in 1981.  So when I asked him to let me do one of him, being the gamer that he was, he readily agreed.

So one sunny day in 1982, I stood him against a sheet of plywood, and while Janet bounced sunlight off a mirror to outline his silhouette with a mirror, I traced it onto the plywood.  It's a surprising thing that a person's full body silhouette, no facial profile even,  is so identifiable.  I didn't pose him or anything.  He came up with this two thumbed pose I had never seen before.   I painted on it until it looked kind of like Kerwin and gave it to him.  He kept it in the house for a little while. but it kept scaring him when he'd forget about it and walk into the room and out of the side of his eye, see this guy in the corner.  So he put it to work on his back porch scaring off prowlers.

Anyway the year goes by and he took it for the long ride.  He decided to abandon it on i-75 near Vanderbilt,  halfway, more or less, between Detroit and his birthplace in the U.P.
He had found a rest-stop with a memorial marker to honoring the service of veterens.  He left it there with a plea on the back that it be returned "Home" to the Detroit News.  I think he was hoping to write a story about it.
Well, it never showed up. Kerwin even made inquiries in the neighborhood.
Eventually, The whole Hitchhiker project, Kerwin included, giot posted on the internet.
In 2000, I got a email from an Australian tourist.

"In the early 1990's I spent 2 weeks in Frankfort, Michigan,  hiking in the hills and fishing the streams - I was on holiday from Australia and was sort of casually touring the US.
 In a Deli off of the  Main street (not far from the only movie theatre) I saw your Jim  Kerwin.
 He appeared to be simply standing around at the Deli, people  watching. He didn't say much - actually he never spoke to me - but he  always had a grin on his face, so I can only assume he was of a  particularly happy nature.
He was the source of much conversation among  the establishments nearby - no one knew from whence he came, and there  was great speculation as to the reason for his constant good mood.
 I offered the opinion that he was simply aware of a "joke" that we could  not see.
 Others had different ideas as to the source of his amusement.
  In any event, that is where I saw your wayward friend. "

People sometimes ask why I chose someone for Hitchhiking.

Well, with Kerwin, he was such a generous man, there could be lots of reasons.

In 1980, when I made a sculpture for the Washington office of freshman Senator Carl Levin that inflated a wind bag and out of a paper sack, pulled a couple of pearls followed by a clump of bull-shit.
 Kerwin wrote the story and it appeared with a photo above the fold on the front page.
With our local papers, that kind of star placement is reserved for hockey team news.

Also, I was indebted to Kerwin for the opprtunity to sit at his table with him and Flo at the Press Club Steak Out year after year and witness the purging of a year of bad politics and civc back biting with a catharsis of rampent racism, sexism and impolitic correctness from the hosings of Neal Shine, Jim Herrington, Bill Bonds, William Milliken and Coleman Young, who could give as good as he got.  Not to forget the outrageous song stylings of the inimitable Florence Kerwin.  Kerwin knew that that off-the-record event, that secret evening of no holds barred. insult and ridicule, back and forth, between the powers-that-be and the press was cleansing and healthful to the community.  He knew it was in the Celtic tradition of the King's Fool.

I could go on, recalling other instances where Kerwin shared himself with me and others,
but none of those are why I picked him to be a Hitchhiker.

I picked him because he was authentic,
because he was a giant,
because he was the real deal.