1955

I guess everyone has someone that they would like to meet or look up to. Besides Jesus, and Bo Duke from the Dukes of Hazard, mine was always James Dean.

I remember as a pre teen wishing he hadn’t of died. That I would maybe one day be able to meet him, but I can’t.

See today back in 1955, his young, tortured, twisted, beautiful soul was taken from this earth; in a tragic death undeserving to him. Although I guess it fit into his fast lane life.

In high school I remember reading my first biography and it was about James Dean. My preconceived notions about him where more or less turned upside down and inside out. At first I thought that my view of him would be ruined by some of the things that took place during his short life, but it didn’t. I only loved the little bit more I knew about him. That was his character, the person he became to be.

3 quotes of his I love

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today”

“The gratification comes in the doing, not in the result”

“If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he’s dead, then maybe he was a great man”


I’ll have to admit he hasn’t crossed my mind in a while. I will have to go dig up that first biography I ever read and reread it this weekend. I might even have to add a few James Dean things to my Christmas list this year too.