Arnold

So camping didn't happen. That's fine, I guess. Next week I go up to see the drags in Denver, but the week after I'm free.

Here and there I've been missing someone. A couple of them, really. At this point it's just gotten complicated to say I miss people. This one was a friend of mine who taught me important things. When to plant turnips. How to start grape cuttings. How to use old crankcase oil and spent gasoline to make smudgepots. Smudgepots are important. They keep fruit alive. He taught me how to irrigate and how to conserve water, never taking more than the absolute minimum. He taught me how to start a tractor using the crank start under the radiator. We spent years talking often under the shade of his shed. I kept up his house as time murdered his bones.

He told me over time about his life. The man had a grasp of the tragic, but he kept a grasp also of the comic. Good guys marry crazy bitches, apparently.

He died and I missed his funeral. I never got to hang out with him on his way out of this world. I was off in The Gulf. He saw one more war take away a friend of his before he resigned himself to the ground he had made his living.

I always miss him around this time of year. He died right after the Fourth.