The Best Memories

As we get closer to the day we share our memories of Don together, more keeping popping up from deep in my memory banks. Don had a great sense of humor and could always laugh at himself. We revisited and relived so many funny stories over the years. I remember learning to race on the sailfish as midgets. Tying a bowline in 1.2 seconds (you have to use your feet!). Our first time surfing when we borrowed Candy Ward's 10 ft. board and had to haul it together over the dunes to Fly's. It was calm like the bay, low tide, with little one foot swells. We could stand in about 4 feet of water on the sandbar and push each other into the waves. (Probably the highlight of my short surfing career.) Thirty years later we went snowboarding for the first time out at Mammoth Mtn in CA. It was much the same scene - two guys who had no idea what they were doing, but laughing with our heads stuck upside down in the snow. "Hey, how do you steer this thing?" "How do you stop?!?!!"

Just a few days ago an old memory popped up about our first attempt at horseback riding. We must have been 11 or 12. A stable on the Main Rd. near the railroad bridge had a small square paddock and a bunch of ponies. I think Randy was with us. I remember we got strapped into the saddles and kept telling the girl guiding us we wanted to "run" so she zipped us around that ring at a gallop where we had to take sharp 90 degree turns. After a couple of turns we slowed down and Don's pony trotted up without him. At the last turn his saddle had slipped and he had gone headlong into the brush. He just came running up, smiled and said, "Hey, let's do it again."