Traffic circle's steward, James Paroline, mourned

It happened here, at this verdant crossing of 61st Avenue South and South Cooper Street, at the very thing James "Jage" Paroline thought would bring peace to his Rainier Beach neighborhood.

A traffic circle, where Paroline was gardening on July 9. An altercation, and then a punch. The next day, Paroline was dead.

How could this happen, here in Seattle? How could this happen, at this symbol of nurturing and care? How could this happen at all?

More than 100 people gathered on a sunny Sunday afternoon at the traffic circle that is Paroline's legacy to mourn a tragedy that was, in the words of Rainier Beach Presbyterian Church Pastor Jane Pauw, "senseless and cruel and unthinkable." But mostly they came to remember a charming, gentle man who looked after the neighborhood as if its residents were his family. And in many ways, they were.

"He adored our kids," said Sabrina de la Fuente, whose family lives across the street from Paroline's carefully tended garden home. Paroline, a retired mortgage broker, journalist and aspiring author, was often ready to help when she'd come home with a carload of groceries, she said.

"To know Jage was to know South Seattle through its unelected mayor," said friend Hans Aschenbach, a retired Air Force officer and businessman.

Family and friends recalled Paroline, 60, as articulate, tenacious and, most of all, tolerant — a champion of diversity who purposely chose to live in an area, not far from Seattle's Kubota Gardens, that was home to many cultures. At the time of his death, Paroline was working on a memoir based on his experience as a gay man in the military.

Born in Bremerton to an itinerant Navy family, he was the second of 11 children whose father took them to places as far-flung as Hawaii and Morocco before retiring to quiet Barrington, R.I.

He went to Vietnam as a first lieutenant in the Army, earning numerous recognitions, including a Bronze Star.

"That experience did not define him," said sister Kathleen Vernon, "but it helped shape him. His main trust was to protect his men and those he was responsible for."

Eventually, Paroline would make his way back to Seattle, where everyone knew him as Jage — an amalgam of his two first names, James and Gerry — and where he and his two "dogies," Happy and Joe, were common sights on neighborhood streets.

In addition to gardening, Paroline enjoyed antiquing with sister Marjorie Whitehead as well as collecting natural souvenirs such as shells, rocks and pine cones, which grace his windows and the grounds around his home.

Said neighbor Isaiah de la Fuente, 10, who occasionally accompanied Paroline on rock-hunting expeditions: "We would set them in his yard after we polished them. ... He liked going out and finding them in the beautiful places he would find them."

Several years ago, Paroline began to express concerns about speeding drivers who passed through the intersection.

"Me and my friends and all the other kids would play, and the ball would sometimes go in the street," Isaiah said.

Aschenbach, his longtime friend who had gotten five traffic circles installed in his own neighborhood, guided Paroline through the process, warning that he would have to accept stewardship of the circle.

"I asked him, 'Why do you want to take all of this on?' " Aschenbach told those gathered Sunday, his voice breaking. "His answer was simple: because he wanted to take care of all the children and the pets in this neighborhood."

Brian Keith Brown, 28, has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Paroline's death. A single punch felled Paroline after an argument with several teenage girls who objected to the traffic cones Paroline had placed around the circle as he was gardening.

Pauw, of Rainier Beach Presbyterian, hoped Paroline had not died in vain and that his legacy would instead produce "a shoot of new life sprouting from this community" in the form of action. "We will take a stand against violence, against retaliation, against impatience," she said.

And indeed, a powerful presence of community thrived at the memorial — friends and neighbors meeting for the first time, roaming the oasis of labyrinthine garden paths Paroline had created in his backyard.

As his grieving siblings tried to make sense of the many collections their brother had gathered, "the biggest collection we've found," Vernon said, "is the collection of people who've consoled us."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com