ANOTHER FUNERAL

That's what happens when you start getting OLD - your friends start to die.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a good friend and a man I had worked with for quite a few years on and off. He was an Engineer and I am a Forester - which by the way is a very bad combination since neither occupation sees any need for the other one - but we got along pretty good and had a lot of projects we got taken care of while he was the Forest Engineer. In his early years with the Forest Service he lived in my home town and helped my Dad cut meat after work and on week ends. His wife told me yesterday that they would have starved to death without my Dad's helping them out with that job. I doubt they were that bad off but I'll bet it helped a lot for Christmas.

When I got to the chapel I sat down by the retired ranger from this District and we visited for a few minutes. When I looked up I noticed a blonde lady just in front of us and there was another dark haired lady and a guy that from the back reminded me of one of the Fire Incident Commanders (IC) I had worked for. I was pretty sure I knew the blonde lady because she was a Planning Section Chief for the Fire Team. I just couldn't stand not knowing so I got up and walked forward until I could see the peoples faces---it was the IC, his wife, and the Planning Section Chief (PSC). Both the IC and the PSC are engineers on a forest quite a way North of here. I shook their hands and welcomed them to the funeral. NO SHAME IN BEING NOSEY FOR ME!!

After the funeral Inklings and I went to lunch with them---it was a pretty laid back lunch and we visited for about two hours. It was really good to see both of them. I learned that the guy we were having the funeral for had hired both of these engineers and that was why they had come the long distance to the funeral - I am sorry we had to have a funeral to see them though.