Just under a year ago, tornadoes ravaged parts of Arkansas, so I decided to check in on some of my boys from the JM Associates mafia, including James Overstreet. I sent him a text asking if he was OK. His response was simple, yet telling:
“Hard to kill a skunk.”
I’ve never given a eulogy and don’t plan to start now, but all of the hubbub about the Skunk’s recent struggles made me realize we have to celebrate him now. I need to do a better job of that in general – telling people that I value them, that I love them, how much they mean to me, and this seems like a good place to start that habit.
James and I are from two very different backgrounds. We’re both hardheaded. We don’t necessarily play well with others. And yet, from the first day I spent time with him in the boat at the 2010 Classic, I’ve treasured any time I get to spend with him. He’s the coolest dude I know. And that’s mostly because he doesn’t try hard to be someone he’s not. Oh, there are occasions when he plays up the backwoods stereotype for comedic effect, but deep down he’s one of the smartest, craftiest, most straight-shooting people you’ll ever meet.
I thought about that last year when I was over at my brother’s house and the entire family was talking about friends whose achievements they most admired. My brother talked about his college roommate who has won the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy and two Tony Awards. My niece mentioned a high school classmate of hers who is from one of the wealthiest families in the United States, but who more importantly performed exceptional community service and works in a world-class cancer-research lab, producing meaningful results before she matriculated at Princeton.
I sat there and tried to figure out how to describe J.O. to a non-fishing audience. In the end, I couldn’t do it, but since then I’ve thought about some of the factors that placed him there in my eyes.
First, it’s that he’s developed the skills of a world-class photographer largely on his own. He didn’t have the boost or privilege of coming from a long line of similarly accomplished photographers. He set out to do something, figured it out on his own and made it happen.
Second, within that discipline, he has his own distinct style – you can tell it’s an Overstreet photo the second you see it. More than that, though, is the fact he commands near universal respect – not just the media, but the fans and the anglers themselves, the last of whom may be the most hyper-critical group of all. You know you’ve made it as a pro when J.O. has made your picture. To walk with him through a weigh-in site is to watch him get stopped by one superfan and well-wisher after another, and every single one of them thinks that they, and they alone, are his best friend.
And, if you’ve spent more than 15 minutes with him – best friend or not – you have a story from him or about him. Whether it’s with his camera or his voice or simply his expressions, J.O. is better than anyone you know at telling a tale, true or otherwise, in his own voice.
The only thing better than a J.O. picture of you, or hearing a story, is getting a nickname. He still calls me the cookie-stealer for the day over a decade ago that I stole one of Sherry VanDam’s lucky cookies off the dash of the boat and downed it before Overstreet could notice or react. I’m sure he was carrying about 32 firearms on his person that day, so the fact I’m hole-free is prima facie evidence that he likes or at least tolerates my presence. Then again, we were somehow involved in disabling multiple boats that day so maybe he’s right I shouldn’t have overstepped my bounds and brought bad luck upon us. Similar lessons I’ve learned from him through experience are not to compare him to Kenny Rogers or to stand downwind when he eats pickled quail eggs.
Every action hero needs his own theme song, and when I think of J.O. the soundtrack is Tony Joe White, the one musician whose work both represents my friend, fires him up and tells his story. But I have a feeling the Swamp Fox could’ve learned a few things from the cagey old photographer.
If you can tear yourself away from the stories, it pays to watch him work. It won’t necessarily make you better with a camera, or better at anything for that matter, but it’s pure grace. He can spit in a cup, describe something that happened in a rice field in 1982, locate a whitetail behind a brick wall and still lift his lens at exactly the right time to get the perfect shot … the Overstreet shot.
That’s what I’ve learned most from him – to take your passions and talents, cultivate them and take them to the max. I don’t know squat about photography, but on the few occasions he’s needed me to focus his camera on our tournament leader while he downloaded pictures or answered the call of nature, I’ve asked what I should do when the action goes down. “Just let it eat, man,” he’ll say. “Let it eat.”
Let. It. Eat. That’s his life in a nutshell.
Stay cool, bro.