By Patrick Wood
Publisher

Dear Reader,

Sadly, Tim Hickey, my best friend in childhood died recently.

He was a unique force in this world and had many talents being a true artist at heart.

We played together as kids and made many a golden memory doing all the things kids do while growing up in
a small town.

There were bike rides, baseball games and building shacks in the back yard — later more ambitious ones we called cabins out in the woods at the edge of the village.

As boys, we got a slice of a happy childhood in good yet sometimes mischievous ways — like exploring haunted houses and barns in the nearby countryside, climbing the water tower at night or catching frogs around makeshift campfires near various streams and ponds.

After high school we all worked on Mackinac Island when our band of brothers and sisters from Denmark, Wisconsin (Jimmy, Bob, Mary, Jerry, Chris, Mike and Dan) were able to get an assortment of jobs there.

Those were some times to be glorified afterwards in tales at our annual gathering at Camp II on Otter Lake as the years rolled on.

We drifted apart after college and explored our own trails in life.

Coincidentally, Tim happened to be on the island again a few years ago when I was vacationing there with my family.

We strung a few evenings together at the Windermere where we were staying and all delighted in a plethora of stories retold from the good old days.

He’s in a better place now; his dear yet weary body rests peacefully; his one-of-a-kind spirit carries on. And we carry on with those sweet memories soon to be tucked away in one of the many pockets of the mind.

Godspeed…