My best friend took his own life the other day

I would love to take you guys up on that offer, although right now its helping the family out. The funeral isn't until tuesday.. got a few hours sleep last night, very few, but headed back to his house with the trailer. hope some of the 3 year old wood is burning good. I stopped by dad's on the way home last night and dropped all the guns off. He gave me another saw, a 009 rear handle with a cute little 12" bar. he also had a mint 034 that I told dad to keep. That must have been a newer saw, as I didn't know he even had it. dad is all excited about it. I'm glad the saw didn't get sold or pawned off for crack money. I'm glad I was able to get into the safe, as everyone else tried before I got there and was going to call a safe/locksmith to the tune of 500 bucks.

Here's to uncle steve's long lasting memory. You'll always be with me in the woods, in my mind, in the garage.

We had a group informal get together tonight that was in memory if Oscar. (his nickname) it was all his motorcycle buddies, family and the garage gang. I spent alot of nights solving all the worlds problems in that garage with uncle and the guys. Calling hours are tomorrow, and the funeral Tuesday.

Alot of really good memories were brought back out tonight. Everyone knew Oscar, knew the three things he truely cared about. His cats, his bikes and his guns. Other than some asking about what happened to the bikes and guns as they were concerned that the daughters would end up with them. Not one person mentioned I want this or that, and every single buddy of his asked about his cats and what was going to happen to them. Luckily, mom is a cat-o-holic just like I am into cars and saws, she will be taking them as long as my aunt(her next oldest sister) gets visitation rights twice a week. That was pretty awesome to see everyone so concerned about oscars babies. I did bring home almost two cord of three year old oak and ash. That ought to burn pretty well in the new insert if I ever get it installed!

The Calling hours was monday and the funeral was tuesday. It went alot better, maybe i'm more at ease with the whole scenario now. it was great to see so many of the ones that cared about him show his repsects. The after funeral luncheon, or wake as you might call it went for almost 5 hours. Needless to say i took a couple days away from everything and caught up on sleep and relaxed... well as best that I could. One of his daughters showed up to the calling hours for about 5 minutes. The rest of us were there from 4:30 until almost 9;30..

After talking with all the boys, and combing the house, (and finding tons more guns and ammo stashed EVERYWHERE) I was a little uncomfortable as I did not find the two most important rifles (to him, and first high powered rifles I ever shot). I found tons of ammo, and magazines for each.... Telling the boys that at the lucheon, one of them nodded to me to head outside with him. I needed a smoke anyways. He proceeded to telll me three locations around his two acres that he knew there was stuff buried. He didn't know exactly where, but knew the general locations. The "boys" plan was to wait things out a year and go dig up the big guns... nice... so got my tractor bucket fixed and going head down there tomorrow (dad rented a metal detector and verified STRONG readings on two of the three spots). Two had so many clues (if you knew how he thought) that there are three signs that pointed to the spot we think holds one of the "sites".

I am interested in the one other rifle that he taught me to shoot with. I found the pistol buried in the wall the other night after the funeral. It is nothing of significant value (.22 LR Ruger MK2), but I knew he had it as it was the very first gun I ever shot. The other is a ruger mini 14. those are the only two I care about, as there are way more valuable pistols and rifles found so far. He had enough magazines for an AK that I'm sure there is at least one of those in the bunch to. The boys told me about about the Barret that he bought two weeks before the accident. I had not seen that, nor heard about it and i knew of basically everything he had. i'm wondering if stuff is buried, if that is in that (as it has been almost 3 years ago since the accident). I'm thinking he probably wouldn't have had time to bury it. He was always worried about people stealing his stuff. I'm concerened about that, because I have not found any ammo, any packaging, anything related to that. i'm really wondering if someone broke into the house and got it after his accident.

My aunts boys (that would be my mom's sisters kids) have already started fighting over stuff.... that part saddens me. They are another this type of 20 year old punk generation that has no morrals and values. They didn't even know uncle steve, nor his hobbies. now they are fighting over the bikes they have stored in a storage unit until the family decides whats going on with them. And now, they are both wanting guns. I have no problem with that, (as I am not in control of that) but these kids have NO experiece with any kind of hunting, saftey classes or even shot one... so, the bickering has started.....awesome. we have 9 days to search the property before it is turned over to the lawyers then its all the daughters unless an updated will is found. And i leave next tuesday for two weeks. So basically we have this weekend to find the last few valuable things that I know are on the property.

I think the "guys" that he hung out with, shot with and rode with need to get some of his guns and bikes, especially if the leads the one gave me pan out. That ultimately isn't my call as there are bills to be paid. I would love to see my mom get to be able to purchase the house as i seriously doubt the daughters even give two pigeons about it.

All in all I am sad about the whole ordeal, but after talking with all of his buds, and the signs left around the house, I now know he had been planning this for awhile and am at peace with it. Ultimately, it was his call and no one was going to change that. He called all of his good buddies the weekend before. Mom did say he tried calling me, but got a number disconnected message. I thought that was weird, but had to think and i don't have my old number anymore... it was about 3 years ago i got this number.... He is in a better place, I know he is out shootting up there, riding a triumph with a nice blonde on the back smiling at all of us. I knew he was smiling down on me the other night when i replaced the stove rope gasket the other night. The temps dropped here a couple days ago and the family had the stove runaway on them and i told them to hold off until I could take a look at it. Got the new gasket on, and fired it up. The cats were chilling out around the stove within ten minutes. That always was their favorite hangout spot!