John Baylor has long known that his brother was loved by a circle of lifelong friends and cared for by the Lincoln community at large.
It was evident in the occasional calls from his brother's dry cleaner imploring John to check in on James, the youngest of six siblings, if he didn't seem like his usual self when he stopped by to pick up his clothes.
John could see the admiration on the faces of patrons at the Zoo Bar, his favorite watering hole, when James — who was more often called Jim or Jimbo, but never Robert, his first name — sang karaoke there.
It was clear, too, on walks around downtown Lincoln the two would take together, often interrupted by James' frequent conversations with homeless men on downtown street corners. He knew almost all of their names, his brother said.
What John did not fully realize, until his brother's death this week, is just how many lives James touched here.
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"I've learned that he was loved by so many people," John said Thursday.
He began to grasp the scope of that all over again Thursday while checking out at Open Harvest Co-op Grocery.
"The woman who, for years, ... (has worked) at the checkout, who I've just been seeing and saying hello to all these years, just starts crying and telling me how they all are so shaken up about this and have been thinking about him, because he would come in at least once — often twice — a week to buy the same items over and over," John said.
"And — the world is a place with a lot of upheaval and change. And James, in many ways, was kind of that rock in the winds of change."
James Baylor, 55, died Tuesday — nine days after he was hospitalized with a head injury following an alleged assault on a downtown street corner at the hands of a 22-year-old Lincoln man in a seemingly random act of violence that his brother called "senseless."
John said his brother was likely just walking around downtown in the early morning hours of Aug. 27, perhaps after a trip to the Zoo Bar, before he was attacked near 13th and P streets. He lived at 11th and P.
"He was certainly on his way home," John said. "He was two blocks away from being safely home."
Born in 1968, James spent most of his life in Lincoln, where he went to Sheridan Elementary for grade school and Irving Middle School before graduating from Lincoln Southeast High School in 1986.
He enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln upon graduation but was forced to withdraw at 19 after he was struck by an illness that would limit him, in some capacities, for the rest of his life, his brother said.
He never stopped rooting for the Huskers. He and John, who serves as the radio voice of Nebraska volleyball, often took in Husker basketball games together, John said. The photo that will accompany James' obituary features the 55-year-old in a Nebraska ball cap.
The illness largely kept James from a traditional vocation, but he operated a lawn care service and worked for Goodwill — among the vintage clothing fan's favorite places to shop — for years before becoming a "serial volunteer," John said. He lent his time to causes and organizations that included the Capital Humane Society and Open Harvest.
"His was a life of service, in some ways, volunteering his time," John said. "His last act was to volunteer his organs. That was in keeping with his character."
In middle and high school, he introduced his friends to music that went on to define their taste in the art, John said — another fact he learned about his brother in his wake.
"He was kind of this cool hipster in middle school and high school who was into all of these cool bands," John said.
The same applied to vinyl records, live music and movies. It was James who helped introduce Tom Graf to the independent and international films offered by the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center — then known as the Sheldon Film Theater.
Graf went on to serve on the Friends of the Ross Board for eight years.
"As teenagers in Lincoln, Nebraska, oftentimes, what do you do? You go to movies," Graf recalled in a phone call Thursday. "And whenever we'd get together and talk about going to movies, James would always say, 'Well, isn't there a cool foreign movie or independent movie playing at the Ross?'
"It wasn't just the blockbuster that everybody was going to and whatnot. I probably — before the Ross became the Ross — I probably saw more movies at the Sheldon with James than anybody else."
The Southeast grad had a knack for finding things to do that other teenagers weren't doing, Graf recalled.
The two, for instance, hosted a radio show together on KZUM as eighth and ninth graders, playing punk rock and new wave songs for an hour at 2 p.m. every Sunday afternoon — until a change in programming was set to move their timeslot to the 2 a.m. hour, not viable for high schoolers.
The radio show was James' idea, not Graf's — a theme that reemerged from time to time. Like when James roped Graf into joining a live theater performance when they were freshmen together at UNL.
The two walked around downtown practicing their lines late one night in the 1980s, Graf recalled, and found themselves rehearsing in the courtyard at First Plymouth Congregational Church.
"All of a sudden, there's some applause," Graf said. "And apparently some couple was, let's just say, spending some time together in the darkness of the courtyard. And we did not realize we had an audience."
James made Graf's life richer, he said.
"I gained a lot by having him as a friend," he said.
Graf said James was adamant about enjoying downtown Lincoln — the place where, as an adult, his daily routines made him a fixture at the shops and spots he frequented.
The dry cleaner. The grocery co-op. F Street Neighborhood Church. The nearby Runza or Mexican restaurant he'd visit after services. The many businesses downtown — Threads, The Cookie Company, Pita & Naan — where they knew James. Where he knew them.
"He was always interested in other people and what they were doing and always enthusiastic about them," John said. "And it was completely authentic. Never with any judgment or ulterior motives. Just a dear, kind, tender soul that touched a lot of lives."
Perhaps nowhere was this more true than the Zoo Bar, where James lived for karaoke nights on Thursdays.
For John, who occasionally tagged along, one memory at the downtown venue stuck out over all the others. A Thursday night in 2021 or 2022, when the bar restarted its karaoke tradition after a prolonged pandemic hiatus.
When the Baylors arrived, James was like a celebrity, John recalled. He hugged the venue's patrons and bartender. His illness had brought lifelong limitations, but on that night, there were none.
"When he thrives and is smiling and doing well, it lifts other people, and when they all saw him — his old self — after COVID and being separated so long, I think it just touched everyone, that, 'Hey, if Jimbo got through this, we'll all be fine.' And it was just a beautiful thing."
His love for the bar came up even at the hospital in the days before his death, said Graf, who overheard another friend at James' bedside point out that it was a Thursday:
"Hey James, it's karaoke night," the friend said. "They're gonna miss you."