Captain Jack

Like so many of us in and around Telluride, I was greatly saddened to hear about the death of the legendary Captain Jack Carey last month. Of course, I had seen the Captain around Telluride for years but only got to know him a couple of years ago through a poker game I play in on rare occasions.Quite honestly, Captain Jack fascinated me in a bunch of ways. From a distance of course there was the magical beard, then a little closer, there was the fantastic accent that had found its way some 2500 miles from home to the West. But when I got to know him, the thing that captivated me most was his certitude and I loved that his courage of convictions crossed a wide range of subjects. It might be the choice of living in Ophir (“Look outside” he said to me proudly when I was at his house to play cards. “No light pollution at all – just the stars”) or it might be poker where more than once I saw Jack get quite heated feeling someone (usually Rob Story who has no shortage of sureness himself) had not been playing the game the way Jack thought it should be played.I am not sure about some of the poker conflagrations but whenever I find myself in a civilized place that is as equally and wonderfully dark at night as Ophir, I think of him and know just how right he was.Nice to read in the Planet that Red Mountain is naming a tree run after him.Ski on Captain Jack. - David H.