His last year hadn’t been great. He had been active and energetic his whole life
and it had become difficult to just walk out of the house. The summer here had
come and gone in a blaze of forest fires—some of the largest in the country. Your
ride up took you through mile-long stretches of blackened timber. Even the early
snow couldn’t make the bare and broken trees look better. And he hadn’t been
able to help. You’d rather conjure him up in front of the market in his Santa
Claus suit, teasing and poking the kids. Or better still, beside you out on that frozen
lake while his buddies cut the holes in the ice for the fishing lines, elbowing
you to pour an extra dollop of whiskey into your coffee. They had caught a ton of
trout that day and just got drunker as the coffee ran out but the whiskey didn’t.
By afternoon, the light had faded to a soft glow and a light silent snowfall began
and continued endlessly until their whole group seemed frozen in time. You had
never known how snowflakes could fall and surround your soul like that. How
you would like to go back and do one of those days over. But it was all said and
done for him And you weren’t sure if you were supposed to feel bad or not.
-From my novel "It Knows You By No Other Name" available from Amazon
I'd been before and since, but that day with Al and his nephews up near Libby was the best. Maybe it was the whiskey. That trip was fine. We went snowmobiling, dancing on Saturday night at Elks Lodge, and generally saw the sights. I got pictures.
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