Last spring my fishing partner for 40 plus years passed. Time keeps going though, and sure enough it's spring again and time for the first sac a lait of the year. Found them at Lk Martin, a small, tough lake to fish and it's cleaning time. Cleaning them by myself gave me time to think back on all those good years we had and one thing in common on just about every trip we had was the Old Man. You know the one, usually fishing by himself, not too concerned about anything except watching that cork...We always looked for that guy knowing he probably knew the lake better than only one else, so we looked and remembered next trip to find an area like that he was fishing. Years go by and next thing you know, the Old Man is in the boat with me. We take our share of fish and all the joys that go with it, good friendship, competition on who's got the first fish, biggest fish or who caught the most. Really didn't matter, just having some one to fish with that was a lot like you was taken for granted, comfortable. We had plans to "fish more out of his boat" this year, build a new garden, go catch some more crabs...just didn't work out. So while I'm cleaning my catch of dozen or so black males from Lk Martin, I had time to think about the Old Man, the 89 year old who was in my boat, and now the one I see in my mirror. We have been Blessed....
