The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Big Frank on August 01, 2025, 09:56:30 PM
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My best friend's wife called me up today and asked if I heard about the shootout between the state police and a guy in Otisville yesterday. Otisville is a village of less than 900 people in the NE corner of the county. I don't listen to the news and I hadn't heard about it. I came in the house and answered the phone after she called several times, and she told me about that. When she said, "You know who it was?", I said, "JJ.", and I was right. JJ is one of the guys I used to go riding with, but no one could get hold of him this year. He wasn't answering any calls or texts, and was posting some really weird things on Facebook. It sounded like he was ready to check out of this world, but he could have just been whining about how bad he had it. My friend showed me a couple of things he posted when we were up north a month ago. There was a cabin he stayed at not far away in McKinley, and none of my friend's other friends in that town had seen or heard from him either. JJ is number 5 in the first pic. Number 7 is Dave who quit riding, moved away, got a leg amputated, and died. Now there are only 5 of us that ride together semi-regularly. There are local news videos about it from at least 4 TV stations if you search for Otisville police shootout. I guess no one who really knew JJ well enough to know what was really going on tried to get him any help when he started going crazy. JJ used to work with guy number 4, who used to work with me and my best friend in Grand Blanc.
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More pics.
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Continued.
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The rest.
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A year ago to the day when this happened, my friend who used to work with JJ texted me these pictures of a carving he made. He didn't say who it was or anything. No words at all, just the pictures. I texted him back, I didn't know JJ smoked a pipe. He texted me back, only when he's smoking pot. I don't remember what my other friend said when he saw it, but when his wife saw the carving in person last month she said, hey it's JJ. That's when you someone has talent. He carves a figure and all his mutual friends know it's their other friend, and not just something he made up.
I remember last month when I found about about JJ's behavior getting strange saying that if he spent less time smoking pot and more time dealing with reality, maybe his problems wouldn't seem so bad and he could deal with them. I feel conflicted about it now, like maybe I was right, but maybe I'm a jerk for thinking I'm right. I wasn't very close to him, but he was fun to be around, and we'll all miss him. If his Facebook page is still up, those of you with Facebook accounts can see the crazy posts he was making.