Absent Friends

Yes, that's Sunday's toast and it's only Friday but a friend, a wargaming and discoursing about history, miniature wargaming, life and various other topics, friend, David Wilson, has recently passed away. 

It was in the early 80's when I had just resigned my commission and had been talked into trying my hand as a shopkeeper at a new wargaming, D&D, miniatures, etc. store which I named The Tin Soldier, (As it turns out, my shopkeeper ancestors hadn't passed the right DNA to me and I was only saved by getting a temp. job that led to a job that led me to  find various unsuspected talents and a career). 

Anyway, this tall, thin, smart, mustachioed, educated, and slightly hippy-ish guy came in to look at the 15mm Napoleonics rack and we got chatting. Before long I had him joining into games as well as spending a lot of time talking over coffee or beer. Before the decade was over he decided to leave town to up his university degrees to Doctor of...various things. For a while he settled in Fredericton and, now and then, when I was there for work or visiting family, I occasionally dropped in for a chat if I had a chance.  Then I retired early, had my heart attack, Covid hit, and my trips to visit family became fewer and shorter and David and I lost contact.  

So it came as a shock recently to get the news that he had passed away, even though he was almost a decade older than me. I felt the need to make some remembrance of him, so I mounted one of my original figures with a few words in memory of our friendship and passed it to his partner. 

May David's spirit find someone to discourse with wherever it goes.