Hopefully this will bring back some fond memories for those that knew him, and provide a small glimpse of who he was for those that didn't.
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In the weeds next to a footpath on Detroit’s Belle Isle sits an engraved boulder that reads:
JEFF COLBY
1964 ----- 2007
COMMITTED TO THE GREATNESS OF DETROIT
DETROITYES.COM/ITSJEFF
I walked by the boulder often on my regular route south along the Detroit River near the Coast Guard station without seeing the inscription. If I paid it any attention at all, I saw only the smooth unlettered side of the rock.
Then one day, while walking in the opposite direction, I caught a glimpse of the engraved words peeking out from behind a mass of weeds. After pulling the grass away to get a better look, I typed “detroityes.com/itsjeff” into my phone and proceeded down a rabbit hole.
“ItsJeff” is the screen name Jeff used on the detroityes.com discussion forum. When he died unexpectedly in 2007, forum members chipped in for the boulder and a bench facing Windsor, Canada, as well as a paver on the Detroit RiverWalk. Since then, the bench has disappeared, and the area became a nature preserve.
A few things about Jeff:
· For 20 years he was a Law Clerk for the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan.
· He visited inmates in prison to help them fill out paperwork for their upcoming cases even though it was not in his official job description.
· He was an unofficial DetroitYES! social director and organized outings at various Detroit locations for the DetroitYes! Forum Social Club [[aka, the FSC), which included any “forumer” who wanted to show up.
· He organized FSC picnics at Belle Isle.
· He convinced a bunch of forumers to playfully hijack threads and type, “ItsJeff is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
· He would invite new forumers to lunch and pick up the tab.
· He went out of his way to make new people welcome at FSC functions, and made a point to introduce them to forumers.
· He loved photoshopping himself into random pictures.
· In 2006, he declared war on Livonia in a hilarious thread that was re-enacted in 2008 on WDET, Detroit’s Public Radio station.
· He had just retired from law clerking and started a new career in the insurance business shortly before he died.
I didn’t know Jeff.
I wish I had.
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