Street roots., March 18, 2016, Page 4, Image 4

Street Roots • March 18-24, 2016
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Page 4
Jim Serrill, also known as Timber Jim, stands in the Hilltop Community Garden, a project that he championed at the Tualatin United Methodist Church.
The ethos of Timber Jim
BY EMILY GREEN
STAFF WRITER
espite the occasionally pilfered
vegetable, Jim Serrill refuses to build
a fence around his community
garden.
The garden, he said, is there for anyone
who needs it
Ask people who know him, and they’ll say
the same is true of Serrill.
Serrill is best known among soccer fans
as Timber Jim, the Portland Timbers’
former chainsaw-wielding mascot but for
those who cross his path these days, he’s
nothing short of a hero.
“A lot of men his age play golf, go fishing
and do a lot of self-absorbed things,” said his
friend, Dale Montgomery. “He does
community projects - not just out of a sense
of duty that he has, but he does it because
he loves people and he wants to help.”
On April 9, Serrill will share his ethos,
“spread the love,” when he gives a TED talk
at Keller Auditorium in Portland.
Timber Jim originated in 1978 after
Serrill asked Portland Timbers’
management if he could bring a chainsaw to
matches. Reluctantly, they agreed. He soon
added a bass drum, a zip line and other sky-
high feats. He was the first to lead the
crowd in chants and sopg„$ fra4i499
-
D
Through tragedy,
Jim Serrill. discovered he
had a lot of love to give.
That will be the subject
of his TED talk.
the passenger seat, sleeping in a reclined
position, which caused the seatbelt to catch
her neck. Everyone else involved in the
collision survived.
Hannah was 17.
“I’ve been teaching safety my entire
career,” Serrill said. “I taught hundreds of
guys how to make a
living and keep from
killing themselves on
YOU GO
a power line, but I
What: TEDxPortland 2016
wasn’t able to get the
When: 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 9
message to her.”
Twelve years after
Where: Keller Auditorium. 222 SW Clay St.
the accident, the
Tickets: $100
moment Serrill
begins to utter
Other speakers include Street Roots
Hannah’s name, his
D rector Israel Bayer, Camions of Care
soft blue eyes begin
D rector Nadya Okamoto, former Oregon
to brim with tears.
Ducks quarterback Joey Harrington and
“I was destroyed.
11-year-old performer Bobbi MacKenzie.
Had to quit my job.
Couldn’t do power
line work anymore.
Couldn’t keep it together. I was just so
depressed. But all my guys at work - they
carried me,” he said. “That kind of love
really made it so we - my wife, Diana, and I
- could cope with it
“I wanted to give back.”
IF
holds steady today. Instantly, he was a hit
Following in the footsteps of his father,
he was a “tree man,” he said. He worked in
the timber industry and trimmed trees
around power lines for Portland General
Electric.
Hanging from rafters and scaling an
80-foot spar pole during soccer matches
came naturally to Serrill.
Timber Jim officially retired as mascot in
2008, passing the chainsaw to Timber Joey.
It was after his family suffered an
unimaginable tragedy that Serrill came to
fully understand how much love he had to
give.
He was performing for fans at a Portland
Timbers match in 2004 when his daughter
Hannah, the youngest of three, was killed in
a car accident
Her boyfriend, the father of her 2-year-( f;
old, fell asleep at the' wheel. Hannah was in
' See