Thanks, all, for the memories you've shared. Really brings the memories back. For most of the years I knew him, I could only admire Jonathan from afar -- but I did that!

I told Jonathan about this years later: Before I found the Folklore Society, I used to go to a pseudo-folk venue called The Singer's Studio. One night the SS featured "Dr. Kilmer's Medicine Show." Don't remember the whole cast of characters, Marv Reitz was there, three or four others, and Jonathon literally was playing the bass line -- very well, too -- on a jug. That night I decided that all the other groups I'd seen at TSS were "pseudo" folk musicians and in comparison they were just "pseudo" musicians at all. These guys were something like "the real thing," almost in a different dimension, especially Jonathon. It's hard to explain. They weren't performing the music, they were living it somehow.

(Actually that different dimension bit can be taken several ways, can't it?)

Once I knew him better I too often thought he was a genius.

Jonathon was fascinated with dragonflies. He had a large collection of dragonfly jewelry and objects. A friend commissioned a woodburned box with dragonflies, to hold his stuff. When it was done, she didn't just give it to him. We got together, went for lunch at his favorite restaurant and made a presentation of the box. Why? Because she knew Jonathon would want to know EVERYTHING about it. So I told him about my research for the box, showed him the photos I took at a local pond to use as source material, and generally put this small thing into a context for him. Things weren't just things to Jonathon, they were stories.

He said the reason he loved dragonflies was that a dragonfly had saved his life. He was visiting a temple in Japan and stopped to admire a dragonfly perched on a wall. Just then a huge rock fell from high on the temple and smashed into the spot where he had been about to walk.