James L. Crawford Jr.: Traditions
and Rituals
A
guy walks into a bar with hisfriends, and they all try to
impress this woman. And they all fail. Except him. He
persuades her to let him go along to the party she's
going to next. He gets her number. Two and a half years
later, they marry, on Sept. 11, 1999.
James L. Crawford Jr., 33, was an equity trader at
Cantor Fitzgerald. Jon Vonder Linden, one of his 11
groomsmen, remembers sharing a shore house with him years
ago. They began a tradition in which they would hit each
other on the head with a shoe, as a cure for snoring.
That worked until Mr. Vonder Linden hit Mr. Crawford with
a golf shoe. The kind with metal spikes.
"There was blood everywhere," Mr. Vonder Linden
recalled. "I thought I'd killed him." But Mr. Crawford,
his loyal and larger-than-life friend, simply suggested
they switch to flip-flops.
"Whatever he did, he did with a lot of spirit," his
father recalled.
His wife, Lisa Crawford, misses his evening ritual,
which used to drive her nuts. Every night he would vacuum
their dogs' hair from the kitchen floor. It helped him
unwind. "Some people used to come home from work and have
a beer," she said.
"He used to dust-bust."
She gave birth to their first child, Isabelle, in
November 2001.
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