Chuck Hubbard was a really good guy and a really good friend. He moved from El Centro to Marengo when we both entered the fifth grade, and so we became great friends for the rest of our time in the South Pasadena school system, steady companions until Chuck left for the Marine Corps in 1966.

Chuck’s major gift to me was the gift of laughter. If you had any pretensions at all, like for example, if you thought you were a good driver, it was a good bet that Chuck would be able to destroy those pretentions and get you to laugh at yourself.  No one was exempt from Chuck’s barbs, but the best of Chuck’s humorous take on life was more often than not directed at himself. A visit with Chuck was frequently an amusing chronicle of every embarrassing moment we had ever shared. He was a fine storyteller and probably knew more jokes than anyone I have ever met. He sometimes would say, “Will Rogers never met Jim Tomlin.” Still, it was also Chuck who would drive a 120 mile round trip to watch you run in a track meet, or front you the money for concert tickets “because it wouldn’t be any fun without you.”

We stayed in touch even when the journey of our lives took us to the extreme ends of this wide country. Even though he lived 3000 miles away on the east coast, his Maryland home was often a refuge for both my sons while they attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Despite Chuck’s protestations, the boys called him “Mr. Hubbard” which Chuck said always caused him to look around for his father. Chuck promised he would watch over them, and he did. He attended both our sons’ graduations from the Academy, and he once rose at 4:30am to pick fresh Maryland corn, which he sent westward with my son who he drove to the airport, a sixty mile round trip. We enjoyed the corn that very night and hoisted a beer in Chuck’s honor.

There are never friends like old friends with whom you have shared so much of life’s journey. Memories sometime hurt, the good ones most of all. We were football teammates, and we went on double dates, mostly with me driving Chuck’s car. We shared my first beer, which Chuck had spiked with vodka.  He at least had the decency to literally carry me home, although this caused him to face the wrath of my mother. Although Chuck knew that my Mom, God love her, would never have believed that anything was my fault, nevertheless he delivered me, past Mom as she watched television, straight to my bed. Later, he even forgave me for barfing in his car, a true friend.

As we all know, Father Time is undefeated, but although many years have passed since that first day at Marengo School so long ago, I can make time stand still and call forth the restless ghosts of simpler world now vanished, and the memories arrive like gifts, anxious to be unwrapped; Chuck, the life of any group with his quick wit, wry humor and enthusiasm for life. Chuck knocking heads on the football field, or chiding me about the senior girl I had a crush on as a sophomore, or recalling his rich trove of ribald stories and Tomlin screwups. I can see him clearly now in my mind's eye, and he remains forever young. Chuck will always be a part of me, and I of him, and so everywhere I go, the memory of Chuck, and who he was, goes with me, a kind of immortality.