And, Jerry, Dean *is* part of the fabric of your life. His passing, be it soon or in 10 years, can't alter that.
In my life it *is* Earl Gorby. He moved next door to where I lived when I was about 14 years old. He was probably in his mid 20's at the time, had a real purdy wife, Tammy, and an youngin' in diapers. Well, my dad was never into wooods kinda stuff so when Earl one day asked me if I wanted to go hunting with him, I jumped on that invite... I'll never forget it. Our first hunting trip was to hunt rail birds and we went to an area over in Clifton, Va. and hunted a long a small river. It rained all day and was cold and it seems that we shot maybe a half a dozen rails in an afternoon which amounted to like enough meat to feed, at best, a couple of folks...
But when we returned home, got into dry clothes, he took me down into his basement where I discovered that he was an amateur taxadermist. Over the next year, he taught me how to hunt, clean and even stuff animals. We also rebuilt a Cushman motor-scotter...