Roads well traveled and a life well lived

I don’t remember exactly when or where I first met Jim, but the impression was immediate. He was warm and genuine, with a smile that exuded his engagement with life. I had read his work as a graduate student, of course, and was fond of his book with Fred Strodtbeck on group process and gang delinquency, first published in 1965. If I am not mistaken, our conversation was about this work and the tradition of gang research in Chicago going back to Thrasher’s The Gang, published originally in 1927. Jim wrote a foreword to that book in a later edition (Short 1963) that stands the test of time.