TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Veterans Day has a sobering effect on me, carrying memories of bygone youth and special friends.

Growing up in Buttonwillow, Larry Johnson and I spent our free time catching or harvesting whatever was in season. Fish and game were plentiful and finding things to do was as simple as bicycling to the nearest canal or field. Free as larks, we lived without the constraints of today's societal notions.

We once met a giant rattlesnake that tried to chase us from its home turf. The angry, rattling diamondback, probably protecting a new litter, slithered towards us from 30 feet away. To two boys armed with .22s, the attack of a 61-inch, mad-as-hell buzz-tail seemed like that of a charging Cape buffalo.

Our semi-automatics held a lot of ammo, and the 40 rounds expended dispatching that enraged serpent were fired in record time.

And then there was the time Larry killed his first wild duck. Years later, I would learn to identify it as a less desirable ring neck, but at the time, that bird meant more than any Canadian honker we'd dreamed of taking.

We didn't know that table fowl selection was an art, so it didn't really matter that the bird came from the local sewage pond. We cleaned and prepared the bird for supper, hoping to surprise his family with the special gift of sharing a man's first duck.

They were definitely surprised. We smothered the fowl in a concoction of sauces and proudly roasted it in the oven, but the malodorous results chased his family from the house. The bird, by the way, wasn't half-bad, but the two of us had to share it alone.

Nary a day went by that we weren't doing something together. Gigging frogs, catching fish, chasing jackrabbits and hunting for arrowheads, we were young and full of life, living like desert-reared Huck Finns and Tom Sawyers.

My final vision of Larry came at Meadows Field while watching him board a jet bound for some faraway place. We wrote often, but in a few months, we suddenly lost touch.

In 1969, I went to that same faraway place, where I met another friend, Gary Edwards Growing up in the Kentucky backwoods, "Peewee" raised a blue tick hound named Snuffy Smith, after the old comics character, and loved bragging that his dog could tree any bear or revenuer that came a'callin'.

We'd sip homemade Kentucky Whiskey and swap hunting and fishing tales night after night, becoming as close friends as two 21-year-old outdoorsmen could. We planned to get together and do some hunting and fishing, but then I suddenly lost touch with him, too.

My friend Bob Banks and I never got along in high school and even fist-fought each other once. Sitting day after day in the cafeteria at Bakersfield College at the Shafter table, we came to know each other and talk.

One day, he asked me for a ride back to Shafter and during the drive, we talked about going fishing when he returned from his trip. I think we became friends that day, but since then, I haven't seen him either.

My memories are the only place where I can see Larry Johnson, Peewee Edwards and Bob Banks, because, you see, they're all dead. Each gave his life fighting in Vietnam, and they are all missed terribly by friends and relatives alike.

Now, I'm not the only one who lost friends during that sad period of our nation's history. More than 50,000 Americans died for a cause that will forever be debated, but that's not the issue here.

Larry, Peewee and Bob gave their lives for our country and our way of life. On Veteran's Day, many of us forget to honor our fallen comrades and their ultimate sacrifices during a too-long list of freedom-ensuring wars. People also have the tendency to forget those other soldiers now fighting in faraway locations.

Take a moment to honor those who selflessly gave their lives and those who still fight so the rest of us can enjoy even the simplest of everyday pleasures.

I remember Larry and me trekking down the Peppermint switchbacks into the Kern River Gorge with loaded backpacks. We crossed the old swinging bridge at Durr-wood, making camp beneath a great old oak. While I started a fire, Larry waded into the Kern to catch our dinner.

The native rainbows wouldn't bite, but Larry still managed to feed us that evening. Dining on fried filets of river sucker, I yet remember how great this supposed trash fish tasted.

After dinner, we talked about the future and what it might bring. I can still feel the campfire's warmth driving away the night's chill, and closing my eyes, I can yet remember the stories two friends shared while lying under the stars.