Obituary of James P. Collins

James Peter Collins passed away at the age of 70 on Saturday, July 15^th, 2023.  James was born in New York, NY on January 15^th, 1953 to Anthony and Margaret Collins.  He was raised in Queens, NY with three sisters, Candy, Alice, and Mary.  He graduated from Jamaica High School in 1971 and later got a job working as a driver for United Parcel Service.

In 1977 James met a nice young woman named Eileen while on a bowling league.  It didn’t take long for sparks to develop between the two and he proposed to Eileen while the two of them rode on his motorcycle.  They married on a freezing cold day in February of 1979.  Three children were to follow – Jacqueline, Kevin, and Gregory.  Of course there was always a dog in the Collins household as James was an avid dog lover.

James had an intense love for baseball which included watching the New York Yankees on television or live in the Bronx, NY.  His love for baseball eventually motivated him to coach the Floral Park Little League for many years.  He had a tremendous impact on many of those baseball players to which years after he was retired from coaching, these players would still talk about him. 

After retiring from UPS in 1997, James took up the craft of bartending at a sports bar called Zachary Taylor’s in Queens, NY.  Taylor’s was the perfect place for James to bartend as it had several patrons who shared the same love for the New York Yankees as James did.  He made a countless amount of good friends while working there and later moved on to working at other bars where you could always count on watching a New York Giants game with some of the most excited Giants fans ever known to mankind.  

James’s mother Margaret came from a typically big Irish family and was one of 14 children, so James had the good fortune of having several cousins with whom he stayed close with his entire life.  Some of these cousins looked at him as if he was a sibling to them since they could always count on him for anything even if it was just to make them laugh. 

Every summer in late August James and his family would vacation at a resort in the Catskills called Baumann’s Brookside.  James always looked forward to this vacation and his favorite thing to do was sit by the pool drinking some beer with some of his best friends and family while also entertaining everyone with music from his iPod.

James is survived by his wife, Eileen, his three children, Jacqueline, Kevin, and Gregory, his daughter-in-law, Casey, his two grandchildren, McKayla and Myles who called him “Pop”, his dog, Lexie, and his three sisters, Candy, Alice, and Mary.  He lived a wonderful life and everyone who knew him would agree that it was a blessing to have him in their lives as he always one of the most selfless people who also knew how to make others laugh.  His memory will long live with all of us.