He almost reminded me of John Denver, with his smell of whiskey and cracked leather. The way he wore those glasses, years beyond repair. How youthful his face stayed, how natural his laugh was. He was the kind of person you feel the need to keep in your life, even though they might never truly be part of it. He was living in Oregon when he died. I don't know where I was, what I was doing. I hardly ever know. On that day, it didn't matter. He was drunk. Alone in his pickup truck when he ran himself off the road. They say he didn't suffer, that it was quick. I wasn't invited to his funeral; who was I but a stranger he met once on his short journey? I remember hearing how his family gave the boots he was wearing to his closest friend, still caked with the mud he has tramped on earlier that day. I still think of him from time to time, that last true cowboy.
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