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"This cannot be real," I thought, fumbling with my tie. Then I smiled as I remembered Chuck always wearing his ties too short. He hated wearing them more than I did. "Well, Chucker, you won't have to grumble about it anymore," I said, looking up. "I'm sure the Good Lord won’t make you wear these dumb things in Heaven."
Dumb things? Where did that come from? Oh, yeah. Chuck called everything dumb. Anything he didn't like was dumb. That was his only curse word.
No wait, he had a bigger curse word for important things. Like fishing. 'Golly bum.' That's what he'd say. 'Golly bum.' I never did ask him what it meant. Didn't really matter. I just knew it wasn’t good.
I struggled to get my tie just the right length. I didn't want to be the next always-wears-his-ties-too-short guy in the group. "He can't be gone," I thought, fighting back tears. "He's my best fishing buddy." Chuck knew more about fishing than anybody. He could never tie a tie, but he could sure tie a knot in a fishing line.
I turned out the light and headed to the front of the store. My store. The little bait and tackle shop I bought last year. I never would have done it without Chuck's encouragement.
Walking out the door, something caught my eye. A state-of-the-art GPS fish finder. I smiled again remembering the time I showed Chuck my new toy. "This way we won’t waste time fishing in the wrong spots," I explained to him. He laughed. Chuck laughed a lot. "No James," he said, "that wouldn't be fair to the fish. That's cheating." Fishing was a game to Chuck, and he didn't tolerate cheating at any game, or anything else.
I guess I admired that about Chuck even more than I admired his fishing skills. He was a man of integrity. A living example of Matthew 5:37--"Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes', and your 'No', 'No'." Chuck didn't quote verses from the Bible, he lived them. Through him, people saw and felt God's love. I guess you could say Chuck was a fisher of men.
"Yes, that man could fish," I whispered, swallowing the lump in my throat. "What is important to me is, he thought I could too."
As I left to say a final good-bye to my best fishing buddy, I stopped to turn the sign on the door.
GONE FISHING, DON'T KNOW WHEN I'LL BE BACK.
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