This is my post for #freewriters 2252 prompt display hosted by @mariannewest
Today there was a celebration of life for my fishing friend who passed away recently. Over a year ago, he slipped on the edge of the river and cut his leg. The water was hot and stagnant, it also carried the flesh-eating bacteria. He had been battling it since then, a couple of months ago the infection got worse and they put him back in the hospital, he caught COVID and they ended up having to put him on a respirator, that was his ending. He was always healthy, and strong.
He was the type of person who would and could fix anything for anyone. You never walked away from him without still laughing at what he said.
There was an older fisherman who didn't need the money, he was retired and moved here from the north and he lives on the river. He was arrested at Walmart for filling a mailbox full of fishing tackle and super gluing it shut. He tried to buy it like that but the cashier could tell there was something in it.
One day we were king fishing and in a fleet of boats, the seaweed was terrible, and kept setting our hooks and we had to pull them in and clean the seaweed off of them. Billy came over the VHF radio and said, "Hey Don, you got any weedless hooks in that mailbox that you stole from Walmart?" The other fishermen did not need to key their mikes, you could hear them laughing. The other guy knew that all of the other fishermen knew what he did.
They had his life celebration at the little marina next to his house, there were 5 or 6 picnic tables with roofs, two were full of food and one had a display of pictures. I walked up to the pictures and my eyes filled with tears, I could not look at them. I walked to the end of one of the little docks and said goodbye. I stayed about an hour and it started to rain the radar showed heavy rain coming so I left.
photos are mine
