Lament (For Rick)

We lost Rick Paul last week. I’ve called him my friend for over 50 years, and I trusted him implicitly; he is the only person I told that I was going to ask Pat to marry me before I asked her and I sat shotgun in a little plane that he piloted right after he got his pilot’s license. I’ve known him since high school, as “Gus” – a nickname he gave himself after branding several of us with silly names that have never really escaped us. I miss him deeply. Damn.