The Longest Mile:

 My long time friend, who just recently passed away, and I had many adventures together over our younger days. One such adventure was one winter we had a pretty good snow storm and he and I decided to go sledding. In our city there were really no good hills to sled on but we knew of a place around a mile from where we lived. We took our flexible flyer sleds and headed for the sledding hill. When we got there we found out we were not the only ones who knew about the hill but we took turns on the hill anyway. 

About 3/4ths down the hill there was a tree that had been cut off leaving about 4' of stump sticking up. It was 6-8' off the sled run so did not present a problem. I had made a couple trips down the run when I noticed my friend going down sitting up on his sled instead of laying down like the rest of us were. I told him he needed to lay down as it distributed the weight and made it easier to steer. He had most of his weight on the back which made the front light and hard to steer. 

Nope, he insisted on sitting on the back with his legs out in front of him. A couple runs later I saw him headed down and the light front end came out of the run and headed right for the stump. He hit that stump straight on and was hugging the stump while he was sucking air out of the surrounding area. I got to him and he looked pretty pale hugging that tree stump all the while sucking air. I managed to get him and his sled back to the top of the hill. 

He wasn't saying much just whimpering unintelligible noises and sucking in air with a strange look on his face. Not being the brightest bulb in the box back then I managed to put his sled on top of mine with him on top of the sleds and started hauling him home. While we had been sledding people had come out and shoveled their sidewalks. I can remember the screeching of the runners across the cement sidewalk to this day. I thought I was going to die before I got us home. All the time he was making little whimpering sounds and sucking in far more than his share of air, still bent over in the same position  when I pried him off the stump. 

I don't know how I managed but I finally got us home and he was still bent over sucking air and squeaking. I managed to get him to his house with the last bit of strength I possessed. I figured he would most likely go childless, but he did marry a wonderful woman many years later and had three really great girls. 

We have remained close friends until he recently passed on to be with Jesus. We have had many laughs over the years about that adventure coupled with so many others. I will miss my good friend but the memories  linger on. Even though after High School our careers took us in different directions and we were many miles apart we always called each other on our birthdays and talked for the longest time. It is hard to lose a good friend - especially one whom we shared so many good memories with.

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