Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Not forgotten

Was just looking for something in my desk in my study and came across something that has a lot of meaning to me, even though I've never used it, rarely think of it and sadly, considered it has spent its entire life with me just sitting and gathering a bit of dust in a dark mahogany drawer. Few of the folks I grew up with, and surely none of those I work with these days would even have the foggiest idea of what this thing is, even if given an hour with it in their hands.

Less than a year before I learned with much sadness that this gent had died, this same thin gent, one I considered a friend in spite of only having been cyber and phone friends, asked me and a few others via email if any might be interested in buying something he'd custom made in his machine shop. One that was expertly crafted by old, rough skinned hands that had spent decades fashioning amazing things of great utility and precision out of raw bars, chunks, billets and rods of steel. This thing he'd been commissioned to make on a handshake and a promise that when complete would be happily paid for and picked up, never was.

Some spineless jellyfish whose word meant less than nothing had stiffed him and refused to follow through with payment. Even though I had no real immediate or practical use for this item, I told my friend that I'd take it. And not for the figure he quoted, one that had him able to recoup *maybe* the cost of materials only but not a single penny for any of the labor and great efforts exerted to design, build and ultimately attain its perfection. I agreed to pay his asking price but stuffed an envelope, and sent almost triple what he'd quoted. He deserved at least that. How could a man in good conscience buy something of that kind of quality knowing that the craftsman's efforts bringing this thing to life were equal to nothing but many hours of his wasted time?

I know not the answer for any other, but for me and me only, the answer was clear; one couldn't. This gent, one whose written words over the years I'd giggled at, learned from, admired, provoked thought from reading and went on more than one occasion to minor-league drunken war with, is still missed. I guess even before he'd dubbed me the 'inscrutable one', I knew I liked him and hoped to meet him some fair day, and had offered more than once to make it so. It never happened, but I'd like to believe that if it did we'd have shared stories not fit to be uttered in the presence of woman nor child, and laughed and bashed one another in the arm and maybe found an eye getting moist.

It wasn't until, however, when, during the heat of a particularly spicy online exchange between him and some lowly troll who'd run out of clever retorts and insults and advanced to not-so-thinly veiled threats, when reading his words that I guffawed out loud and thought to myself, 'man, I love this old dude and I do truly believe he means what he says!'

The one particularly nasty threat shot at him here was leveled against not only him only but also his beloved and faithful dog. In his response, Greg was plain, unemotional and he wrote back something like, 'I've told you where I reside. I don't fear you and if you're foolish enough to follow through, you're welcome to come anytime to attempt to carry out your threats. But know this: if you are so lucky as to actually make it onto my property and as much as lay a finger on my dog, so help me God I'll burn you alive'. And he meant it.

Godspeed, blue skies and endless expanses of desert flowers and bunnies running flat out everywhere to you Gracie, and to your daddy.

Sounding a bit misty there KG. .