James Allan Gonsalves' Obituary
You could call him the original Jimmy G, topping that guy that plays quarterback for the 49ers.
Call him a nice guy, but that’s only part of the story.
Jim Gonsalves loved to call himself “Jimmy Boy.” He was a Bay Area original – 65 years in the same house. Over on Le May. In Hayward. Just off Tennyson.
I met him in college at Chabot. Over on Hesperian. It was the mid-1970s. This was a friendship that lasted.
I’m not sure who was luckier - me or him.
That he requested me, Obrey Brown, to come help him in his time of dire need was not just an honor, a privilege or even a pleasure. It was a chance to, at long last, show my respect for a real friend. Friends like this don’t grow on trees. Guys like Jim are hard to find. It’s easy to be a friend. First, though, you’ve gotta find guys like him.
Jimmy G followed the first rule of friendship – if you want a friend, you must first be a friend. Not sure who really said that first, but whoever it was hit it right on the button.
James Allan Gonsalves, who died on Sept. 16 at 11:24 at a hospice care facility in Hayward, will be remembered as a man who had dozens of friends during his 67 years of life – virtually all of those in that San Francisco Bay Area community.
Jim, who had no siblings and never married, nor did he have children, was the lone child of Joseph and Lorraine Gonsalves, both previously deceased. Joe called him "Jimmy Boy." It was Lorraine who called him "Jimbo."
He graduated from Hayward Tennyson High School and attended Chabot with hopes of working in the radio broadcast industry. Instead, he wound up working 18 years as a bellman at the Fremont Marriott Hotel, which was where he racked up dozens of friends throughout the years.
If Jim wasn’t going to work, he’d sport a Montreal Expos’ cap. Or maybe an Oakland A’s cap. Maybe a Giants’ cap. He had them all. If it was Bay Area cold, he might zip up a team jacket from, say, the 49ers or Raiders, or the Baltimore Orioles. If he was going to work, he had a company cap to wear. It was his trademark image.
Out in his garage, there was a set of golf clubs. And a bunch of baseball bats.
“No,” he told me once, “I never played on the high school teams.”
Jimmy G wasn’t good enough, he’d tell me.
He took up golf in college. Mid-1970s. He noted that I played a lot of golf and vowed to take up the sport. We played one time at the long-ago shut down Bay Meadows Race Track in San Mateo. They had a little executive course on the infield.
Here’s one reason I remember that day: A Bay Area windstorm, strong gales hitting us from all angles. We had to aim our shots 90 degrees right of the hole just to get it to the green. It was laughable for both of us. Too bad the horses weren’t running that day.
Here’s a guy that’ll roll up to you and talk on your level – movies or sports, a joke at the ready, showtunes or stories from the past, books, radio stations – with a Teddy bear poised at the ready in case someone has a newborn.
He’d smile at you and recommend a nice restaurant.
He’d share a good laugh and make you feel right at home.
The Giants? The A’s? Raiders or 49ers or Warriors? He’d often have inside information.
We’d share plenty of good times on the telephone, countless times every year. I knew he was single, no family, no one living at his home. I tried to call on holidays, just to offer a little cheer.
I’d ask him about working at the Fremont Marriott. It was his life.
“I love it there, Obrey. I love it.”
He rattled off stories about Daisy and Sandy, Ashley and Sayid – a bunch of others whose names I can’t remember. Jimmy G was in a different world. You could just hear the cheer in his voice talking about co-workers, restaurants he’d recommend, challenging guests, happy guests, celebrity guests.
When he got cut from the Marriott, he was like a wounded Teddy Bear. It was his life. Marriott took his life away. He was like a soldier without a gun, like a baseball player without a bat.
“I wanna work,” he kept telling me.
There was a list of places he’d applied for work – bellman jobs across the bay, a couple hours away, even a food market job. No one would hire this man. He’d have been good for anyone’s business, too. Stupid. Heartbreaking. And in a day when people are begging to get out of work, hiring Jimmy G was like hiring a true professional for any spot.
His love, his total and complete passion was his long-ago hopes to be a baseball broadcaster. Jim would send out dozens of tryout tapes to radio stations, praying for a chance to get on the air – disc jockey, engineer, sportscaster, newscaster, anything. He’d work his way up, just like his idols Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons, Al Michaels and Monte Moore, Harry Caray and tons of others.
How he’d hoped for a letter of response … “Hey, loved your tape, loved your voice, come in and talk to us about a job.”
It never happened.
Jimmy G could rattle off stations like they were best friends’ telephone numbers – KSFO, onetime radio station of the Giants, KDKA in Pittsburgh which did the first baseball broadcast way back in 1921, he’d known them all.
Someone shoulda hired this guy.
One of the reasons I think my relationship really sizzled in the beginning was I showed up at his house a couple of times. Met his dad, Joe, and his mom, Lorraine. Nice folks. Hey, you two had a helluva kid.
Speaking of his parents. Joe came down with Parkinson’s. Jimmy G made the decision to hang around the house, help care for his dad. That took place over a period of years. Lorraine couldn’t have done it alone. It was around 1998 when Joe died. Four years, or so later, Lorraine died.
It’s how he met my wife, Laurie – on the phone. Back in the days when people had landlines, Jimmy G called my house to let me know about his mom. I wasn’t there. Laurie took the call, listened to the horrifying news and talked him through the tragedy.
“Laurie was the only one that talked to me during that time,” he told me later. “I’ll never forget her for that.”
Neither will I.
Jimmy G was alone. Or so I thought.
Upon my return to the Bay Area to try and care for his needs, there was Daisy and Ashley, Devi, Rachel, Richard, Issa, Victoria, Clay, Chuck, Bobbie, Brenda, Lisa and his forever friend, next door neighbor, Bill. And plenty more. Lisa, Ashley and Rachel brought family members.
There he was, lying in his hospice bed, people surrounding him with good cheer, love and total friendship. Lots of folks are scared to show up at a dying man’s bedside. Not these folks.
Should I say it? That he had a love in life, someone that deserted him – for whatever reason. In all the subsequent years, Jimmy G talked about Sandy. Who knows what happened? Sinatra, Jimmy G’s yardstick crooner, made a career in singing love song breakups.
Colonial Acres, on the opposite side of Hayward from Jimmy G’s house, had become his final home. That house of 65 years – gone – proceeds going to his designation. Those four cars in his driveway or garage, disappeared. Those dozens and dozens of sports jackets and caps, zapped away.
All those phone calls? Dozens over the years. I now treasure. There was a real friend on the other end of that phone line. I only hope he felt the same.
Is there anyone claiming to be Jim’s best friend?
Naaaa, I don’t think it’s really possible. I think almost everyone qualifies as his best friend. Even in his miserable concluding days, he made people feel like a million bucks.
“I love you,” he’d say.
Yes, I believe, Jimmy G really meant it.
What’s your fondest memory of James?
What’s a lesson you learned from James?
Share a story where James' kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with James you’ll never forget.
How did James make you smile?