His services are tomorrow.

They will be held in a church in Chattanooga, his hometown and one of my favorite places on earth.

Many folks who are my friends will be there. i will not. It’s just too far away, one of the penalties i pay for my choice of home in the Southwest corner. It’s a wonderful place out here, just too far away from my origin at times.

The folks who do make it there will be saying goodbye to a legend. i will say goodbye to my friend, the legend, Charles Oren Hon, III, in my own way far away.

i have enough legendary tales about Charlie Hon to fill a book, and i’m sure i know only a minuscule number of those tales. “Escapades” does not adequately describe Charlie’s adventures and misadventures, a couple of the latter having me involved. It’s not time to bring those tales out of my memory. That will be for later.

It is time for me to honor a legend.

Charlie was a success, a contributor. i cannot say enough about how he and his beautiful and wonderful wife Ann Eliot Hon have made me feel like i belong.

Most of all, Charlie was one of the best life-long friends a man could hope to have. i was lucky to have spent enough time with him for us to call each other friends, actually much more than that.

i will go up on my hill tomorrow, probably midday, and take a beer. i will look out on the vista of the California hills of high desert, the blue sparkle of the bay, the gray of the Navy ships berthed pier side on the Naval base, the deep blue of the deep Pacific, think about the land of Chattanooga he and i both love, and i will toast Charlie with that beer. i will remember him and that chuckle that would envelop me in the good things about this world.

And i will scrape away all of the stories and the legend, and give him my highest complement. For Charlie, like my father, was a good man.