"The Boys of the Beaver Bunch" are here.  They began arriving at the cabin on Pickwick Lake Thursday evening.  The noise of guys having fun has not ceased for long except for sleeping.  We are, what we call generation one and generation two of the Beaver Bunch...friends for over 25 years, and their sons/sons-in-law.  There are nine of us here today.

Yesterday was our first day of fishing.  The day began with us launching four bass boats.  We congregated here at my dock prior to starting the fishing. 

The morning turned into a great fishing trip.  We'd planned on having a fish fry that night so everyeone wanted to catch enough fish for that.  We ended up with far more fish than we needed.  About half were returned to the water.  We cleaned over forty fish.  Everybody caught their share.

When we returned to the dock, the bragging and lying began...of course.  There was an abundance of laughter and fun.  As this was going on, the "dark edges" as I call them, closed in on me for awhile. 

Bonnie was always the first of the ladies to come to the dock when 'the boys' returned from fishing.  She delighted in hearing the stories, bragging, lying, trash talk that always occurred. 

As yesterday's antics were unfolding, I wanted to hear her laughing at the fun as she always did.  I longed to see her cut her eyes at me and wink, knowing these times were blessings beyond compare.  We could never have had enough of these days, but we certainly enjoyed the ones we had.  The times when the Beaver Bunch got together were some of our fondest shared memories.