Neil Jacoby

My dad died in January 1997 and today is his birthday. So instead of putting up a "new release" article, I'm submitting the article I wrote immediately following his passing. It ran in our family newsletter and was distributed to all Jacoby members far and wide.

From THE JACOBY SHUFFLE
Thanksgiving, 1997

My father's official obituary, which was printed in Middletown, New York; Tujunga, California; Big Bear Lake, California and Apple Valley, California, told the story of his passing and gave a brief essence of the man my dad was. He loved antique cars, loved to play poker and had a great love of "communing with nature ..." He would get up late at night to go sit in the back yard to stare up into the sky and wonder about the stars and the moons and the great meaning of life. He used to love to go sit beside Big Bear Lake and ponder existence and why we were all here, doing what we were doing. And he loved to feed the ducks.
    
A man, whose hero was Frank Lloyd Wright, my mother and I once stood under the Eiffel Tower in the rain, while he and my husband, Larry, tried to figure out how many bolts it took to get the tower to stand up.

My dad taught me how to play poker and he taught me how to shoot pool, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. He taught me how to have fun and how to enjoy life, one day at a time. In a poker game I knew I could never buy a pot from him, and he knew he couldn't get one from me. We could bluff everyone else out of the game with a straight face, but we knew each other well enough to know what was going on. Like the song says, "You've go to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know win to run ..." We never bothered counting our money at the table because when we played, we played for fun. At the start of a game, every one would put a dollar into a pot and get an equal amounts of chips: The blue chips were worth a thousand, the reds five hundred and the whites, a hundred. Whoever had the most at the end of the game, won the whole five dollars.
  
Here in this issue of The Jacoby Shuffle, family members have contributed their memories to share, in a hope that together we can cope and remember the great man that my dad was.

A Very Funny Article, From a Very Funny Man:
MY WIFE BELONGS IN A ZOO...

NEIL RELYEA JACOBY
September 26, 1929
January 18, 1997

Neil R. Jacoby, age 67, died peacefully in his sleep at St. Mary's Hospital on January 18, 1997. Mr. Jacoby, a graduate of Florida State University, worked in the advertising field for three decades before retiring from his own company to design and build custom homes. An antique car buff who loved to stare into the night sky and visit local ponds to feed the ducks, Mr. Jacoby is survived by his wife of forty-five years, Suzanne; daughters Debra and Jacqui; son Jon; brother Allen; sisters Diane and Adell; friends Larry, Joel and Liz; and seven grandchildren, Zachary, Bethany, Caleb, Jon-Neil, Brittany, Bryce and Bridgette. A memorial service will be held January 25, 1997 at 1:00 p.m. at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church on St.Timothy's Road. In lieu of flowers, please send contributions for a memorial to St. Timothy's.