I only want people to think I'm crazy! / Scott Harvey (Brother-in-Law) Jimmy had lost his license for a short time, but wanted to go over to Connersville to check out some guns. Consequently he asked me to drive his vehicle. So I'm driving down the back road from Pennville to Connersville (think it was called 9 mile or Pennville road?). Anyway Jimmy and I are laughing and enjoying each others company. Then a couple of minutes of silence came and I could tell Jimmy was thinking of doing something. He had that twinkle in his eye and that mischievious grin on his face. When all of the sudden he covers my eyes with his bandana or dew rag. He says to me," How big are your balls?" Well I'm driving and can't see a thing but instead of hitting the brakes like most people would have done, I push the accelerator to the floor. It seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only a matter of seconds. We're flying when I realize we are no longer on the road. Jimmy pulls the dew rag from my eyes just in time for me to pull the vehicle back onto the road to avoid hitting a telephone pole. He shouts, "Man you are crazy! I only want people to think I'm crazy, but you're the real deal." At which point I replied, "I'm crazy, you're the one who covered my eyes while I'm driving your vehicle." Anyway we both laughed and he just shook his head as in disbelief of what had just happened. Perhaps he realized that he had met his match. Every now and then at a family get together I'd ask Jimmy, "How big are they?" He would just laugh. No one else knew what I was talking about, but he knew.
Your stone looks good. Dawn and I went to see it today, then later on mom and I went out to take flowers. It was the first time she'd seen it. I think she liked it. We thought about taking Brutus with us. Maybe I'll take him next time. We had everyone over for a big dinner last night. It was so quiet without your laughter and antics. Such a huge part of our family left with you that night. No one really says much anymore but you can tell we're all feeling the loss. Nothing is the same, nothing will ever be the same. I love you. Close
Hope you are enjoying fishing in Heaven. / Rosemary Sis Of ^i^ Alvin Cremeans Read >>
Hope you are enjoying fishing in Heaven. / Rosemary Sis Of ^i^ Alvin Cremeans
Hope you are enjoying a heavenly day of fishing. Hugs and prayers to your family and friends. Rosemary sis of Angel Alvin Cremeans
Jimmy's stone is finished... / LeeAnn
The monument shop finally got Jimmy and dad's stone finished. I stopped by today, like I do on many days, and it was back. Stop by Lutherania and look at it. Be sure to look at the back also. Close
fade.../ Me
I try to breathe Memories overtaking me I try to face them but the thought is too Much to conceive
I only know that I can change Everything else just stays the same So now I step out of the darkness That my life became 'cause
I just needed someone to talk to You were just too busy with yourself You were never there for me to Express how I felt I just stuffed it down Now I'm older and I feel like I could let some of this anger fade But it seems the surface I am scratching Is the bed that I have made
So where were you When all this I was going through You never took the time to ask me Just what you could do
I only know that I can change Everything else just stays the same So now I step out of the darkness That my life became 'cause
I just needed someone to talk to You were just too busy with yourself You were never there for me to Express how I felt I just stuffed it down Now I'm older and I feel like I could let some of this anger fade But it seems the surface I am scratching Is the bed that I have made
The dead bird on the hat / Rachel Drake (Rob Tidrow's little sister )Read >>
The dead bird on the hat / Rachel Drake (Rob Tidrow's little sister ) I just ran across this web site kinda by accident, what a wonderful tribute this website is. After reading all of these stories I remembered one particular story about Jimmy. I remember Jimmy being over at the house when I was in elementary school quite often. I remember him fixing breakfast, very tasty, and I remember him being really funny and nice to me (not many of my 3 brothers friends were nice to the younger sister). One particular "Jimmy Nicholson" story is one time Rob and Jimmy were out shooting BB guns (I hope just BB's), well Jimmy shot a bird, I think it was a Carninal. Well the bird died and Jimmy being the jokester he was thought it would be funny to display this bird on top of his hat.....it was very funny, I can still see that dead bird flopping around on top of his hat. (I don't remember how he got it to stick there). Many "Jimmy Nicholson" stories have been told at the Tidrow family dinner table.. as a matter of fact now, Rob's kids are telling "Jimmy Nicholson" stories. (like how to "marinate" a banana????)Close
I'm sorry / LeeAnn
Jimmy, I'm sorry for so many things, but I'm especially sorry that you felt so alone. I read some of your emails and it broke my heart to know that you were so lonely and you thought you had no one to talk to. I know you felt abandoned by your friends, you felt like they really didn't care all that much anymore.... they all had their families and more important things to do than come hang with you. I really hope you know the truth now.. I hope you know that you were never alone and we've always loved you. I guess people get busy and they get wrapped up in their own problems, blinded to the problems of those around them. That doesn't mean they stopped caring. From all the people I've talked to, they adored you and loved to be around you. I know it's too late for any of this to matter but I just felt the need to write it down. I love you and I miss you so much... sometimes the pain is unbearable. While going through Jonathan's dresser I came across your shirt.. the one you spilled paint on that night. I wasn't expecting that and it hit me hard. I look at all your things just sitting here like they're waiting for you to come back. I guess that's what I'm kind of doing.. just waiting for you to come back. Close
Jimmy,Rob and Tammy Tidrow/The Three Shall Be One / Pauletta Hyer (tammy tidrows mom )Read >>
Jimmy,Rob and Tammy Tidrow/The Three Shall Be One / Pauletta Hyer (tammy tidrows mom )
Many nights Rob Tidrow would come over to see Tammy and Jimmy was usually with him. Rob was in some kind of cadet police program and he would have hand cuffs and a billy club, he would say he was Jimmys guardian and they would laugh, actually I don't know who was watching over who. Rob and Tammy and Jimmy would spend hours talking and laughing, Jimmy made everyone happy, he was a light in the world that time can't put out. I am glad that he came through our families life because he made it lighter. Tammy and I talk about Jimmy and there is always a tear and then a smile, his life touched ours and because of that we will carry his memory in our hearts always. Close
Message to Jimmy's friends / LeeAnn
Thank you all so much for your support and for being there. Jimmy loved you all very much... his friends and family were what he lived for. I'd like to plan a get together (or several) this summer. Please contact me at my email address furiscruel@hotmail.com . If you haven't already done so, sign up at the bottom to be notified by email every time the site is updated. I hope to put the video that was shown at the calling and funeral up soon. Keep those stories coming in Rob (and everyone else). I have some of your phone numbers but not all, so I'll try to contact the ones I can find in Jimmy's notebook. Tammy (Tidrow).. I tried to email you back but it keeps coming back to me. Hope to talk to all of you soon. Love you all! LeeAnn Close
No one knows but you / LeeAnn
I can almost feel you smiling From beyond those silver skies As you watch me finding my way Here without you in my life
No one knows but you How I feel inside No one knows No one knows but you
I've come so close to believing All the echoes in the wind Brushing my hair off my shoulders I feel you there once again
And if there is some magic Some way around these stars Some road that I can travel To get to where you are I'll cry this empty canyon An ocean full of tears
And I won't stop believing That your love is always near Close
Jimmy and Brutus / LeeAnn
Jimmy got Brutus in July of 1998, about a month after his first dog, Aspen, died. Jimmy took Aspen's death really hard. He called me and told me about it.. I think he was crying. When he got Brutus he was like a new parent.. taking tons of pictures and carrying him into the big house for everyone to see. Brutus was his baby. He couldn't go to the store without buying something for Brutus... lots of toys and vienna sausages. When he went into the hospital he wanted to make sure that we got vienna sausages for Brutus.. and he told us that he fed them to him on a toothpick one at a time... I tried that once and decided I liked my fingers, so I'd just dump the whole can into his dish. Jimmy was in the hospital in intense pain ..his heart stopped twice and he went into complete renal failure.. and what was he most worried about? Brutus. He called me once and had me put him on speaker phone so he could talk to Brutus. He said "hey bubba.. you being a good boy? You miss daddy? Daddy will be home soon.. you be good". Then he'd ask me what Brutus was doing, if he could hear him. Jimmy and I went to the chinese restaurant with everyone when Peanut and Jerry came in. We sat at a table by ourselves and made fun of people. Jimmy kept getting up and getting eggrolls. He'd ask if anyone was looking and when the coast was clear he'd put them in baggies that he'd brought and put them in his pockets. He was in a little bit of pain because they were really hot and he had about 12 of them in his pockets! By the time we walked out his cargo shorts were full of eggrolls for Brutus. A couple days before he went into the hospital he came home with a fleece pullover for Jonathan, a purse for Caitlyn, and a couple toys for Brutus (a hedge hog and a bulldog with a christmas scarf). He always had to bring stuff home for them. Close
Sly comment / LeeAnn
I never really knew what the whole "sly" thing was. I remember him saying it a lot and I remember he had made the word "SLY" out of bending metal (I remember thinking it looked like a bunch of bent paperclips). I was just thinking about that the other day... he had that hanging from his bedroom ceiling, the bedroom he ended up dying in. I bet it's around here someplace.. he kept everything. I found one of his stashes up in the loft. There was a trunk of tons of stuff he use to have in his bedroom... a red devil bank, some weird thing with projections off of it with little orange and yellow balls on the end.. that always reminded me of a solar system model. Even though I was really young then, and I wasn't suppose to be in his room...I can remember tons of that stuff. I use to sneak in there when he wasn't around... look through his records and stuff. I remember thinking "what the heck is spanish fly??" His Iron Maiden poster always scared me... didn't stop me from snooping though. I'll have to look for it, but I know I have a cassette tape of Jimmy pretending to be a DJ. I sat outside his door with my tape recorder and recorded him playing songs and talking about dedications and such. I called it DJ Jazzy Jimmy or something like that. I guess I was the typical annoying baby sister. I use to follow him around and want to be involved with whatever he and his friends were doing. The fact that I was 8 or so at the time didn't help my chances. He and the neighbor Steve got me completely stuck in the mud in the garden out back. Jimmy ended up having to get a board and stick it under my feet like a lever to retrieve me. They thought it was hilarious but Jimmy could also invision dad not thinking it was so funny. I really miss those days... even if I wasn't involved, I loved seeing how much fun he was always having. Close
jimmy and the carp / Rob Mullins (friend)
i think the carp in the picture is the one that ended up in some poor souls locker in 10th grade. yes, jimmy had a key to unlock the school locks at rhs. how he ended up with these keys, i will never know. if only he had one for ft. knox...but anyway...he brought the dead carp to school in a cox's paper sack. he showed it to mr. joiner, biology teacher, who loved jimmy and got a real kick out of him. he told joiner he was going to put it in so and so's locker, joiner dared him to do it, so jimmy did! a couple years later, mr joiner would re-live that stunt with much laughter... Close
army days and jimmy becoming family / Rob Mullins (friend)Read >>
army days and jimmy becoming family / Rob Mullins (friend)
i went into the army right after high school, jimmy went to work at various jobs around richmond. one day, i got a letter from jimmy. he said he met a girl at a drive-in. she lost her ring, and jimmy searched high and low for it and found it. he got her address and took it to her. she took jimmy to a family reunion of some sort. when he got there, he saw my mom. jimmy had hooked up with my cousin tami! soon they got a place in cambridge city. i could have taken my army leave and gone anywhere, could have ridden my motorcycle to the rockies or some other place, but i always came home and spent it with jimmy and tami. we partied down. once, jimmy and i tore up the restroom at the truckstop on highway 1. the manager came out and asked if we did it..."no, wasn't us"..."well you guys are the only ones here"..."hey, you got the wrong ones, we didn't do it"... another time. jimmy, tami and i went bar hopping from new paris to greenville. on the way back to indiana, we stopped at taco bell. being a drunk 19 yr old army guy, i offended a couple in the restuarant. so we followed them down national road, me driving. i threw taco sauces at their car, so they pulled over and called the police. while we were in pershing i think, a sheriff deputy pulled us over. i had to take a sobriety test. i knew i was busted. trying to walk a straight line for barney fife, i looked into the car at jimmy and tami and made a face at them. then i blew into the breathalizer in the cruiser. after a few minutes the deputy handed me back my license and military id, and told me to get our asses to cambridge city. just another crazy jimmy and rob story. once, i had jimmy bawling like a baby. he told me the army had changed me. i mustered up my best rambo-john wayne-auddie murphy-God-mom-apple pie schpeel, talking about how i was ready to go and fight the soviets, ready to die for my country. he was bawling. that showed me what a sweetheart jimmy was. when it was time to get out of the army, there was no question, i was going to come home and hook back up with my best friend and now cousin since he and tami married. more crazy stories to come... Close
high school days / Rob Mullins (friend)
our little gang of jimmy, eric and i liked to show up at the high school games with a little buzz going on. eric and i had mothers that were prescribed valium (wonder why?) eric's folks had a well stocked liquor cabinet,(wasn't well stocked after we got through), jimmy had phil poland next door to get some weed from. we all had some outside connection that could cop some beer or other goodies for us. our meeting place was jimmy's basement. we would walk out back of jimmy's house, to the earlham lane. by the time we got to the high school football field or civic hall, we'd be all glassy eyed, laughing, ready to hook up with the other crowd. we'd even take the stuff in the game with us. looking back, i can't believe how daring and stupid we were. when we got our licenses to drive, our first destination would always be carls carry out in new paris. at age 16, we learned how to doctor up our birthdate on the license, to make it appear we were old enough to get served(age 18). worked every time. i guess i should mention this, jimmy once found a box full of silver in somebody's attic. i accompanied him a couple times and we took it to mister g's to hock it for a few bucks. jimmy payed for beer, food, video games. i tried to get him to buy me a big buck knife, but he didn't. we joked about it though. jimmy did have to pay his dues for that. i kinda had something to do with it i guess, but he never ratted me out. once, eric picked jimmy and me up in his vw bug. we took a stoner cruise into the country. for some reason, jimmy and i got out of the car and eric took off. we laughed a little, but eric never returned. jimmy and i were bummed and started to walk. we talked about what we were going to do to eric once we got our hands on that shithead. all of a sudden, we heard a big pop. we turned around to see erics vw bug completely airborne, all 4 wheels in the air, jumping the railroad tracks. we split our guts laughing about that, eric saved himself. at age 18, i joined the army and was acting all rambo. jimmy and rob tidrow picked me up one night and i brought my .22 cal rifle. we shot out a few street lights, but i kinda went over board when i shot a cow. tidrow didn't find it funny, jimmy nervously laughed. ok, we were really psycho! hope nobody gets offended by my posts, but i want people to know what kind of fun we had. really, this kind of fun would cause problems for us later in life... Close
"Sly"/ Rob Mullins (friend)
back in 7th grade, alot of us decided to take on nicknames. most wanted to take names from sports heroes, but jimmy called himself Sly. he lived up to it. it seems he and i had every single class together, and all we ever got done in school was to laugh all day long. jimmy would invariably get seated off to the side, in back, or next to the teacher. he would call my name by coughing and saying rob at the same time. i would look over to see what he was up to next. one time in a study hall, with everybody quiet, he called me out. i looked over and he had michelle tiemann's pants down to her knees, in class with mr. thompson! the locks on the student lockers at boston jr. high could all be opened by 2 master keys. jimmy had possession of both those keys! we shared in the spoils of that. once, kim hunter had to take some kind of medication for a bladder problem. jimmy, eric and i would sneak out of class somehow, we got into her locker and found the meds. eric and i took a few. later in the day we started peeing a deep blue color. got a laugh from that one. in order to get into the earlham college facility, one needed a special badge. jimmy had possession of 3 of them. we just pinned those things on and explore earlham inside and out. we found ourselves on a catwalk that was above an auditorium full of students. we shot a few spitwads on the unsuspecting earlhamites below. jimmy told me that during high school, he and a girlfriend would ditch class and go to those rafters...can't mention what happened... back in art class at boston, with mrs. lyons, jimmy was seated way in the back away from the class out of site. mrs. lyons thought she outsmarted jimmy by separating him from eric and me. yeah right, next to jimmy was a bunch of clay for pottery. eric and i to this day talk about it raining clay in art class. once, mrs lyons had to leave the classroom unattended for a few minutes. jimmy saw an opportunity to do something. what he didn't see was that mrs. lyons re-entered the room. jimmy yelled out,"there's nothing like climbing over tables and chairs", and proceeded to jump from table to table over the entire class. the look of disbelief on the faces of mrs. lyons and jimmy when he got busted was priceless. the class roared! mrs. lyons let jimmy pass on that one because it was so funny. our time at boston jr. high wasn't about learning much of anything, it was about jimmy entertaining us, and nobody did it better than he did. Close
my prayers and thoughts are with you as you prepare to celebrate your birthday in a few weeks. may your loved ones take comfort in knowing you will have the best party ever because you will have so many angels gathered around you. send your loved ones down lots of kisses and hugs. you are loved and missed by so many people.
Tributes and Condolences
actually I don't know who was watching over who. Rob and Tammy and Jimmy would spend hours talking and laughing, Jimmy made everyone happy, he was a light in the world that time can't put out. I am glad that he came through our families life because he made it lighter. Tammy and I talk about Jimmy and there is always a tear and then a smile, his life touched ours and because of that we will carry his memory in our hearts always.
Add to favorites 
