I've lost a friend or two over the years, sometimes through my fault or my immaturity, sometimes because because we just drifted apart, once because I realized that I was being used (and THAT really hurt!), and, most recently, to death.

I grew up with Bob. We smoked our first cigarettes together; I eventually smoked a pipe and back in '85 I stopped. Bob didn't. Maybe, like so many others I've met, his experiences in Vietnam (as a medic) had something to do with it. But no matter how much time passed before we'd talk or see each other, it was like no time had passed at all. Three years ago, I got a phone call telling me that he'd died. I called his brother and learned that Bob had succumbed to stomach cancer. He left two children and a wife and a lot a good memories of better times than these.

Last June I visited his grave and left him something he'd have appreciated. Put it way down into the dirt so that it would be there.
No, it wasn't a cigarette.

Check out the DT for "Sully's Bucket" or "Ramblin' Boy."

MAD