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<\/p>\nMade even harder when you live over 600 miles apart and his memorial service takes place during a deadly pandemic.<\/p>\n
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On July 18th I lost one of my very few close, nearly life-long friends to acute myeloid leukemia. Dennis Morgan and I became good friends beginning as freshmen in high school in Cut Bank, Montana and we’ve remained close in the intervening 60 years. As adults we didn’t see each other often because he lived in northern Montana and I lived in Salt Lake City. But we kept in touch and when we did see each other we instantly took up where we’d left off. It was always like that and I guess I presumed it always would be. Fate had other plans.<\/p>\n
Because of the distance involved, my recovery from fairly recent back surgery and health considerations during the pandemic, I couldn’t attend his memorial service in Kalispell, MT four days ago so I haven’t had the closure I need. I’m hoping today’s blog post covering some of our history will help – a catharsis of sorts. For me they’re precious memories, even though some of them don’t shine the best light on either one of us. After all, in many of them we were high school kids in rough and tumble Montana in the 60’s. But those events are a part of what bonded us so they’re important to me.<\/p>\n
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Believe it or not, most of our activities back then didn’t involve beer. Living so close to Glacier National Park meant that we all loved to spend time in “the mountains” as we called it, so we made every excuse to visit the park. This is Dennis, throwing an ‘air kiss’ to Suzanne, another one of his girlfriends, on a late spring picnic to Glacier NP between our junior and senior years in high school.<\/p>\n
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Dennis graduated from college with a degree in engineering which he put to good use throughout his career. He had a well-deserved reputation for being able to fix anything and he had a passion for classic cars. I only saw Dennis and Betty Ann sporadically over the years, on occasions like visiting them during the one year they lived in California, or when they’d visit us in Utah and at high school reunions in Montana. But we never lost touch. Or our closeness.<\/p>\n
The mountains in the background of the above photo are symbolic of Dennis’s life-long love of Glacier National Park and nearby Flathead Lake. After he retired in 2010 they bought a house on spectacular Flathead Lake and that’s where he lived until he died. I was always so incredibly jealous…<\/p>\n
R.I.P. Dennis Morgan.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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PS – Back to birds tomorrow, if I can find any. Today’s post is for Dennis. And for me.<\/p>\n
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Made even harder when you live over 600 miles apart and his memorial service takes place during a deadly pandemic. (2 photos)<\/p>\n