Good bye, Charley

Dear Editor,

An old man died this week.

Oh, he wasn't from here as he lived just below the boarder in Kansas.

He was 91 years old and had no children so his stories will die as many do. Two weeks ago when he called me, his major worry was how many times he was going to go fishing this year.

He had a life time of stories but one of my favorite was World War II had started.

A government car pulled up in his yard. He figured a family member must have been killed over there but instead they wanted him grow a crop for the war effort. He of course didn't refuse. The product was marijuana. 160 acres of the stuff. He said it got more than 7 feet tall as it got timely rains. The government came in the fall with a crew and harvested it and paid him double any crop he would have planted himself. He was told that the government used it to make (rope) as they still do in many third world countries today.

They did come back for two more years just to make sure there wasn't seed left to grow wild. As a kid in the '60s I asked him with a field of the stuff right there, did he ever try the evil drug?

He said why would he, there had a still just down the road if he wanted a buzz.

His best remembered story was on religion. He said He never saw God in any Church but going fishing on the lakes he could see God everywhere, and living in his own home and driving himself daily as he planned for more fishing at the age of 91 ain't bad.

He lived healthy and long and not once did I have another person ever say a cross word about him.

Bill Donze

McCook