The subject line of the email from my sister was “Very, Very Sad News.”

I expected to read about an old friend of the family who’d died.  I was right, but not as I expected.  The message read:  “Our childhoods are OVER.  JP has passed away!”

Then came the text from my brother:  “Chris Wedes has died.  So long J.P.”

J.P. Patches Memorial

If you’re one of my contemporaries from Seattle, you’ll know immediately what this means.  Chris Wedes, aka J.P. Patches, the clown-faced host of the best local children’s TV show ever, is gone.

I’ve been trying to write something about J.P. for days, but it kept coming out like a dry obituary from The New York Times.  That’s fine if you just want the facts.  There’s a great J.P. article on Wikipedia if you’re looking for that.  But the important story here isn’t in the particulars of the J.P. Patches Show; it’s in the bond that he created among all the kids who watched him.  There’s a reason we erected a statue of him.  He was the glue of a generation.

ICU2TV and Me

But I can’t take you to the little shack in the City Dump where J.P. lived or show you the magic of the ICU2TV that let him “see” back into our homes and wish us happy birthday.  (That is if your parents sent a post card to the TV station telling him so.  Otherwise you spent every birthday sitting two inches from your set only to be disappointed.)  I can’t introduce you to his would-be girlfriend, Gertrude, or his nemesis, Boris S. Wart, or Ketchikan the Animal Man or Gorst the Friendly Furple– all played by the multi-talented Bob Newman.  I can’t impress upon you the importance of being a Patches Pal.

I have tried.  I mentioned J.P. over dinner with some colleagues a few months ago and was met with pure incredulity.  All the things that seemed completely normal to me hit my friends like bolts from Mars.  Thank God for smart phones.  A quick Google search vindicated me and even provided photos of the statue, but I still got the feeling they weren’t completely convinced.

All I can do is tell you that J.P. Patches gave my friends and me some terrific childhood memories and that we’ll all miss him.  Like my family’s tile at the statue says, my brother and sister and I are:  Patches Pals 4ever.