“They moved to Walnut Boulevard, about a block from Harbor High School,” Clark said.

Landis and Clark played football together for the Mariners, providing part of the offensive line for the teams which featured standout running back Don Laaksonen, who went on to play with Jim Brown at Syracuse University and is now a member of the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame.

“Jim played tackle and I was a guard,” Clark said.

But they were not of the star quality of Laaksonen. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

“During World War II, we used to play a lot of backyard football games together,” Clark said. “You’d throw Jim the ball and he couldn’t catch it.

“During the war, there was a substitute for butter they called Oleo. We would have called Jim ‘Butterfingers’, but because Oleo was the name we used for butter back then, we called him that. It stuck, and I don’t think he minded.”

That’s because if he was nothing else, Landis was a Good Humor Man. Nobody enjoyed a joke better than Landis.

“Jim was a terrific speller,” Clark said. “He could twist names around backward. He also made up a thing he called Finn-O-Nyms, which related different items and jobs to names of Finnish people who lived in the Harbor.”

Examples included comedian (Jokela), rabbit (Haapala), goose (Honkonen), hat (Kapala), clean (Peura), stature (Hietanen) and cold (Kuula).

“I never saw Jim really mad,” Clark said. “He was very even tempered. (At 6-foot, 210) he was a big teddy bear.”

Landis probably prepared himself for a life in the media in some fashion even when he was little.

“When we still lived in Stoneboro, it had a lot of good basketball teams,” Clark said. “We used to play games with socks and a wastebasket. Jim would broadcast the games that were played and write them up after the game.”

When he got to high school, Landis became involved with the school newspaper, the Mariner, and the yearbook.

“He was the sports editor for the newspaper,” Clark said.

Landis, Clark and his future wife, Lois Anderson also were a part of the Class of 1952 from Harbor. The Clarks were married in 1955 and have been married for 55 years, living all the time in the same home in which they now reside. Their daughter, Lori Mohan of Brunswick, is Landis’ god-daughter.

After graduation, Landis headed off to Ohio State for a semester, but didn’t like the big-university atmosphere. He joined the U.S. Navy after his return to the area and served from 1953-57, traveling to Europe and functioning mainly as a radioman.

“Jim probably would have been the best man in our wedding, but he was in the service at the time,” Clark said.

When he returned stateside, Landis traveled for a time, then came to work at the Star Beacon, according to Clark.

In that period, he was married to the former Shirley Robinson of Jefferson. They lived for a while on Jefferson Road, then moved to Highland Lane in Saybrook Township.

Landis quickly established relationships with area teams.

“Jim talked a lot about (ACBF Hall of Famer) Al Bailey (of Spencer and Geneva),” Clark said. “I know he thought a lot of (Ashtabula’s ACBF Hall of Famers) Bob Walters and Gene Gephart, the Hitchcocks and Paul Freeman.”

Even after he left the area, Landis came back for special events, like the big game between Walters’ great 1977-78 Ashtabula team and the St. Joseph Vikings of Clark Kellogg.

There were long periods away from the area, too, but the lure of the county always seemed to draw him back like a magnet.

“He came back for (Harbor’s) 40th class reunion in 1992,” Clark said. “Then he came back here in 1994 because he said he wanted to see the leaves. We knew he was sick then, but I took him to Andover and he had a great time.

“After that, Jim was talking about moving back up here again, but his health wasn’t very good. He fully intended to come back here. I was so glad he got to make one last trip.”

Now, Landis’ heart, and his spirit, lies forever in Ashtabula County.