“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.” ~ Edward Abbey

It was January of 1969 when I was plucked from the tiny tropical island of Molokai and dropped into the high desert, smack in the middle of Nevada, to a town I'd never heard of before called Tonopah. My first Sunday there, I met Mike at church, before I'd even been to school in Tonopah. He was a skinny redhead two years older than me, with coke-bottle glasses. The day we met was also the day that I took my first motorcycle ride.

Our tiny Mormon branch was too small to be able to afford our own church building so we met at the Eagles Hall, where we Priesthood holders would arrive early on Sunday mornings and clean up the beer cans and cigarette butts left over from their Saturday night debauchery so that we could hold our Sunday meetings there. My Sunday School class was held behind the bar.

That particular Sunday happened to be Fast Sunday. In the LDS church, the faithful skip two meals on Fast Sunday and then donate what they would have spend on those meals to help feed the less fortunate. It is the job of the young church boys between 12 and 16 to visit every member family and collect their 'Fast Offering'. That's how I came to find myself on the back of a Honda Trail 90 as we descended down the side of an abandoned mine dump, riding behind this half-blind redhead I'd just met, and terrified out of my mind.

Over the next three years I would spend so much time on that extra wide luggage rack that doubled as a rear seat, that I thought I'd end up with permanent marks on my thighs from those metal bars. My parents encouraged me to hang out with Mike because he was the only other LDS kid near my age in town. I think both our parents came to regret encouraging our friendship, each blaming the other kid for being a bad influence. Truth be told, we were mutually bad influences.

When Mike and his family moved to Utah three years later, I figured I'd never see him again but a few months later, my family moved to Utah too. Though we were still 200 miles apart, Mike made sure that we stayed in contact and I visited when I could, generally when my family visited relatives near Mike's town of Pleasant Grove.

That would be the first of several times that we might have lost contact were it not for Mike making sure that didn't happen. I could never have guessed back then that we would remain friends right up until the Grim Reaper came calling more than 40 years later. Mike passed away last week after suffering a stroke a few days earlier.

Truth be told, Mike was always a better friend to me than I was to him. That was one of my first thoughts when I heard about his stroke but of course, it was far too late by then to be a better friend.

One of my favorite things about Mike is the way he thought of his friends. He was always bringing me things he'd come across in his daily travels; a newspaper article about something that he knew interested me, a magazine he thought I'd enjoy, or just some silly trinket that reminded him of me or of something I was interested in. Often over the years he would show up on my doorstep on is way to somewhere or other and drop off a book or a poster he'd come across that he thought I'd like. When we went on trips or just on a hike, he took lots of pictures and always got double prints so that he could give a set to me.

Mike introduced me to a lot of things. A voracious reader, many of the best books I've ever read and some of my favorite authors came my way via Mike. Maybe he just told me about a book he thought I'd like or maybe he gave me a copy or loaned me his. I was introduced to Edward Abbey through Mike when he gave me a copy of Desert Solitaire.

Mike loved the high-desert country of Utah and Nevada and I always thought of him as a desert rat, which made Abbey a natural fit for him. He reminded me sometimes of the Hayduke character in Abbey's novel The Monkey Wrench Gang,so much so that Mike was the inspiration for the character of Wally in my novel. I adapted this short story from that novel. Mike knew he was the inspiration for that character and loved it.

For about five years in the late 70's and early 80's I had a little part time business Deejaying dances. I would pull my little trailer of sound equipment all over the State of Utah playing gigs for High Schools and Church groups. Mike went along on almost every gig for no pay. He just enjoyed hanging out for the weekend and was happy to help me lug equipment, set it up and take turns playing deejay. Then we would tear it back down at midnight and either drive most of the night to get home or head to our next gig in some other small rural town. Often we would spend the whole weekend's earnings just having fun for the weekend.

Speaking of music, it was Mike who introduced me to a lot of the music that I still love today. In Tonopah, we couldn't get much music via radio so it was hard to keep up with what was current. The first time I ever heard Abbey Road it was on a reel to reel tape that Mike recorded and gave to me. That was a scenario that repeated itself many times over the years.

I remember stopping by his house in Salt Lake years later and he was excited about a new album he'd just gotten by some group called Supertramp. I didn't really want to listen to it because Supertramp sounded like a disco band to me and I was so done with disco. Too bad for me, he made me listen to Breakfast in America and I was blown away. I'd never heard anything quite like it before and to this day, I think of Mike whenever I hear anything from that album.

In the past few days I've spend a little time looking back over the years. Each memory of our adventures together seems to spark three more that I had nearly forgotten. I'm amazed at how many things we've done together over 42 years: a trip to Disneyland as teens, too many weekend gigs to count, hikes, motorcycle rides, concerts, sporting events, dinners, camping trips and movies. Mike loved movies and always stayed until the very last credit had rolled by on the screen.

Mike was always my best cheerleader. If I was attempting something, whatever it was, he was always encouraging, he always believed I could accomplish it. When I did have success, he was always happy for me with no hint of envy or resentment. I can only hope that I was as supportive to him as he was to me but I don't think I was.

Like everyone else in the world, Mike made mistakes. He made one very big mistake in his life, for which he paid a high price. I've always admired him for owning up to what he did and taking his lumps like a man. I remember one particular conversation in which he told me about the problems he was having, financial and otherwise, in the aftermath. I thought that if I were in his shoes, I'd just run away and try to escape it all but Mike didn't run. He faced his problems and eventually overcame them. I thought that showed a lot of character.

Among the things that Mike introduced me to was the Bob Seger song Beautiful Loser. He said it was about his relationship with me. While I don't think that Mike was a loser, I do understand the parts of the song that he related to.

Mike, old buddy, you've really done it this time. So long. You'll be missed.