I lost a good friend this morning due to pneumonia. This was a complication due to pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, and a myriad of other problems. I had known him for about 25 years, but we didn't really become good friends until about 12-15 years ago when we started working for the same state agency. We retired from there about a week apart. More recently, he would ride with me all over the State of Arkansas while I was doing Loss Control Surveys of various businesses. He had done this type of work for years, long before I ever got involved in it after retiring from the military. He had retired from the Army Guard. We had a lot of fun talking about what was wrong with the world, the crazy or not so crazy businesses I visited, the insane drivers, the weather, the trees and widlife. One ritual we had was to visit the various restaurants in the area and sample their fried catfish. We found the good and the bad.

He never knew about Portia, and wouldn't have understood if I told him. It was not in his culture. He knew that I wrote, and in fact I gave copies of my novels to his brother-in-law to read. I don't think he ever did. He was about 6' 4" and weighed about 340lbs when I first knew him. When I talked to him last week, he weighed less than I do. We hoped so much that he could beat this, recover from the minor strokes and get his strength back so that he could travel with me again for at least another year. It was not to be.

His wife called this morning to give me the news, but my phone screwed up. I saw the number, and I had a bit of panic; however, the ringing stopped, so I assumed the call was in error, not the message we all dreaded. She thought she was leaving a message. I called this afternoon to find out how he was doing in rehab, and she told me the news. I will miss his companionship. The highways are lonely out there. I will travel close to a thousand miles this week. I went to Waldron on Monday, Mena on Tuesday, Searcy today, and Helena tomorrow. My car turned 300,000 miles on Monday. It still gets 30 mpg on the road, and doesn't use any oil. I guess that's the good news for the week.

Portia