GOODBY TO A FRIEND

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A close friend and fellow employee has recently lost his struggle against cancer. We were close friends at work and we had a sort of mutual understanding about life. We both have military backgrounds and a great deal of what was learned from those experiences has been applied to our current lives, both on a personal level and on a business level in the form of ethics. When I moved to Tennessee I had only one friend in the state. I met a man on a boat dock shortly after and we became instant friends. I consider Paul, a TWRA Agency employee, to be a best friend and I'll always hold his friendship sacred. There is nothing I wouldn't do for him. When I left the agency to work at Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson, I met a multitude of people I consider to be friends. The Harley owners and associated dealership comprise a pretty spectacular family that I am proud to be a part of. Then one day a guy walked into the store and I greeted him and received the usual "just looking" with a little statement attached to it, "got my bike wet." "We're gonna git some rain it looks like." Small talk lead to showing him a couple motorcycles and eventually the customer and I arrived at a mutual agreement on a trade in price and he bought a Harley Electraglide Ultra from me. The point of this is that we were instant friends from the handshake we shared when he walked in. I thoroughly enjoyed him. He was honest in his statements. There was nothing phoney about what he had to say. Ever since that day, he and I have been friends. Later he was employed by Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson and we worked together.