Tom had a last request for me.

He was a good friend for a long time. We were great friends in high school and roommates in college. He may have had his first sexual experience in the back of my 1956 Buick Roadmaster. Not with me, of course. We’d even been arrested together. I was sad to see him go. What you see now is a picture of me with Tom (he’s in the urn) and I’m getting ready to take him to Hulah Lake in Northern Oklahoma where I’m supposed to put him in a canoe that he built almost 50 years ago with his dad and take him out into the channel of the Caney River and set the canoe on fire. This is something like the vikings did with some of their clansmen. At least that’s what Tom told us. The point is for his ashes to merge with the Caney River and eventually flow into the Arkansas River, then into the Mississippi River, and finally into the Gulf of Mexico. Sounds a little dramatic to me. Then again, what do I know? I’m just hoping I don’t wind up in jail for setting a canoe on fire on government property. Luckily, I have a support cast who I’m going to let do as much as possible as far as setting the actual fire. As far as I’m concerned, I’d still like to see him sitting on the mantle at the house where he lived the last 30 years of his life.