I lost a friend the other day. When I first heard the news, I was sad, but I was more concerned about his kids, who are around my age. It's been kind of a slow reaction for me to realize that he was a friend and I am hurting.
Some of my earliest memories are of Leroy and his family. For most of my childhood, his kids were my best friends. We spent so much time at each others houses that we came and went as if we lived there, and thought nothing of it. As we got older, Leroy was a leader in our scout troop, he was just a fixture in our life.
Things fell out as we got older, as things do, but I can't think of my small town life without his family being a large part of it.
Let me share one of my earliest memories. My memory may not be very clear, and my mom and others will tell it different, but that's how memory is, isn't it?
I don't remember how old I was. Grade school. Little, I think. Our moms, Barbara and Dina (probably spelling that wrong), took us to see Bambi at the movie theater (this was before everyone had a VCR, let alone DVD). There was my brother and I and Leroy and Dina's three kids, Leanna, and the twins, Patrick and Kelly. Leroy was out hunting. Deer hunting. You can probably guess the rest, Leroy got his deer, and brought it home at about the same time we got home from the movie. Mom and Dina found themselves dealing with 5 kids crying "You shot Bambi's mom!!!!"
To this day I can't watch that movie with my kids.
