Post by jack kearney on Aug 5, 2024 15:18:26 GMT
JACK | Jonathan James Kearney II September 21, 1993 Livingston, Montana Son of Michael (62) & Gwen (60) Brother to Peter (28) & Margaret (26) third-gen Irish American 6'2" | brown hair, blue eyes |
| welcome to Big Sky Country. Discover the magic of Livingston, Your Year Round destination on the Banks of the Yellowstone River in southwestern Montana's Paradise Valley.
Bozeman, Montana ... 25.8 miles Yellowstone n. entrance ... 56.7 miles Butte, Montana ... 110.0 miles |
| Inner workings As a natural leader, he loves (perhaps needs) a project. Manages people well, being sympathetic and considerate in relations. Patient, analytical, tactical. An ambivert, he likes socializing but also also needs to recharge. Avoids idle hands because he'll feel useless or listless. Working from a young age and being primed to the family business matured him early beyond his years. A pushover when it comes to his loved ones, it’s hard to tune out their problems or not feel selfish if he does. Keeps certain personal thoughts and feelings to himself, often in a head-versus-heart battle that makes him overthink. Committed to his role, he can succumb to the pitfalls of always being the strong, certain one. As a problem solver, in conflict he may unknowingly come off like a careful manager. As a planner, he is usually the one to ask the tedious but necessary questions--you'll thank him for it when you forget or overlook something. Values constructive feedback, it's rare to hear him speak poorly of others or give himself permission to complain. |
| The Livingston Enterprise > local News | 2021 Timberline Mill Diner, established in 1963 by Johnathan (b. 1941) Kearney and his wife Shannon (b. 1942), has been a cornerstone of the Livingston community for decades. Johnny, a dedicated rancher, and Shannon, a devoted homemaker, initially sold meat and baked goods from their upcreek home. As word spread about the quality of their products, more and more travelers began stopping by, driven by the increased mining activity and burgeoning tourism to the parks. This prompted the Kearneys to start serving meals of stick-to-your-ribs Montana favorites, eventually leading to the creation of Timberline Mill Diner which continued to welcome both locals and visitors with hearty, home-cooked food. In 1990, ownership passed to their son Michael (b. 1962) and his wife Gwen (b. 1968, née Bohannon), who carried on the family tradition of hospitality and quality service through its transition to Timberline restaurant and bar. It is with a heavy heart to report that after 57 years of serving the L-town community, Timberline has closed its doors following its sale, leaving behind a legacy of cherished memories from generations of loyal customers. We thank the Kearney family. |
| Cattle are raised. Children are reared. There was never a dull moment growing up in the Kearney household. If someone dared to utter the words "I'm bored," they could expect to be handed a list of one hundred to-do items. The worse the attitude, the worse the chores—snow removal, pest control, manure management. Petey was handy, Maggie was good with the animals, but Jack did it all and then some. The eldest, the tallest, and with the most resemblance to dad, the firstborn pioneered the way for his younger siblings. Early on he came to understand his role as a Kearney man, being primed as the successor to the family business. It takes a lot of work to stay afloat in an extreme place like Montana; rest is for the wicked and lazy, with consequences that could cost the family everything. Tourists flocked in the spring and summer, the only time their region is halfway habitable. Visitors skirt overnight blizzards and deadly windchill and rolling thunderstorms, straight to the good stuff: runoff fishing, freshly-born wildlife, clear trails and sunny skies. To locals Montana is humbling and alive in its vastness; to them it's a temporary playground. While they're passing through, the Kearneys are all-hands-on-deck at their service, the community a network of places to stop, eat, and lay their head. Exploring the creeks and mountains is fun as a child, but eventually mom and dad come calling for help when business peaks. Up at dawn, down by midnight. Prep, clean, deliver, call, wash, babysit, feed, serve, relay. Housework, yardwork, homework. Puberty indicates a readiness for real work, earning room and board at sixteen. After high school, he's too needed to go on those European backpacking plans. Maybe next year. Eventually he watches as Pete and Maggie get into college and leave to other states for four years, drifting home for the holidays like tourists. If he's jealous of them he's actually mad at himself, so instrumental to the operation that he's in a bind of his own making. A few years after his peers, he enrolls at Montana State University, working and studying full-time. A degree in business happens alongside his big ideas for the restaurant: incorporating enough merchandise and local wares to add a gift shop, then learning about liquor licenses before he's even of drinking age himself. With expansion and more tourists comes more money—and, as always, more work. A long-term relationship was his only reprieve from a life revolving around his family, but it was just as challenging to juggle, yet another job. College made him sharper, armed with the math and statistics that are more persuasive than any hunch or anecdote. Expanding the family business left him fascinated by logistics, striving for efficiency and organization everywhere. Smart and ambitious is a dangerous combination, always thinking of the next thing, raising his own bar as he ushered in a modern era for the business, optimizing payroll, ordering, inventory, advertising, customer engagement. But all of his work could not withstand a global outbreak that halted tourism, crippled the small community, and picked off those unwilling to change. Timberline was one of the last few to fold, but it finally shuttered like the rest. That decision aged everyone ten years overnight, tears shed and sleep lost even after grandpa Johnny's blessing to surrender his little empire. "You don't have to stay," the eighty-year-old told Jack, sensing his grandson's guilt. "Go, while you're still young." If there was ever a push to leave home, this was it. A hard reset on most peoples' lives, Jack saw the opportunity to focus his efforts elsewhere and moved to Los Angeles in 2021. With his decade of experience—even if it was just at a little mom-and-pop restaurant in Nowhere, Flyover State—he secured a job in retail procurement, soon made a purchasing manager for Bristol Farms. At first California was a culture shock in its pace and scale and weather...but he quickly grew to enjoy the change, matching the pace, adapting to the scale, and reveling in the "weather." Then of course, there was Sylvia. |
| Heart of the matter Rachel | 2012-2017 The girl next door - could not be kept without a ring Andrea | 2019-2020 A good girl, bad timing - goodbye to Montana Erika | 2022 A fresh start in a new place - greetings from LA Sylvia | 2023 - present With exotic features and an accent only heard in movies, Sylvia was proof of places that existed outside Montana. Like many others she appeared in the summer—but year after year she came back, the bringer of summer itself. A breath of fresh air as the busy season started for his parents, when Jack was still young enough for the business to be background chatter, encouraged to enjoy the Montana wilderness that thousands came to see. And every summer Sylvia returned home, years of this becoming seasonal cycles of their own: missing in the fall, wishing in the winter, waiting in the spring, loving in the summer. Grandpa gifted him a digital camera for his fifteenth birthday, said people travel from all over to see these sights. For Jack this was home, familiar, boring even—but she wasn't, becoming the favorite subject of his camera. Even now he still likes the silly ones best—the candid, the unexpected, honest and raw for his eyes only. Those pictures were all he had of her when she left for home, a tourist of his heart that returned every year, so steady he could set a clock to it. Counting down the days until she came back, tided over by instant messages and emails and letters that traveled farther than he ever did. Sylvia became the talk of the town when she exploded into fame. Though she didn't come back for the summers after that, her phone number never changed. Jack kept tabs on her over the years, people around town asked him about her and eventually they had more to tell than he did. Stories about her girl group fortune, pictures and videos of her travels and performances. She wasn't from Montana but these people still hoped she carried Livingston with her, a sign that one could get out. If she never looked back it would be no surprise, but she wasn't someone to forget. If he wasn't in a relationship, then she was; switching back and forth, never a good time to reach out beyond the occasional hello or birthday text. The flirtation and tension were almost too much when they did finally land together again, current partners or interests a forgotten mention. A revolving door of encounters as she swept him up into her friend group, having years ahead of him in LA. He listened to her podcasts from the beginning, figuring out he was the one mentioned in her oldest stories. It was how Jack found out that she was finally single at the same time he was, jumping at the first chance to ask her out, confirming that he felt the same way too and wanted to give them a shot. Almost a year in, the love was fast and effortless. He’s privy to the real side of her, not the image assumed by the public or the version heightened by the podcast. She helps him wind down and take pause, he preempts and soothes her anxiety. He is as supportive as ever, though still wary of her tumultuous history with the industry |
| susan the seagoing vagabond . callum turner . resident |