Jeffer is losing his battle.

It's a sad time for me. One of my dearest friends is losing his battle for life to brain cancer. His pain level is down but his brother Scott tells me he is fading away, both physically and mentally.

That's a shame for the Mountain Man. Yes, Jeffer as we like to call him, flipped the bird to the ladder climbers a long time ago and did what all of the rest of us threatened to do. He moved to the beauty of the Colorado mountains and for the most part, he made a go at it. He knew his wines and could cook with the best of them as he went through a variety of hotel management and chef jobs. He lived where he wanted to live and did what he wanted to do.

He finally settled in the stone business and was the guy to call when your million dollar condo need some nice high priced stone counter tops.

Even in his mid 50's, Jeffer was in top shape. While some of us developed new belt sizes and had to move over the bigger pant sizes, Jeffer continued shopping the skinny section. His closets were busting with designer suits and shirts and shoes, but close to the door were his muddy work boots and a working man's hoodie.

His skin looked like it was painted on him and he blazed up and down Vail pass on his expensive bike when the rest of us could barely negotiate a steep driveway.

I went trout fishing with Jeff several time. We never caught a thing and never had a strike. There was a good reason. Jeffer plowed through the bushes and weeds and into the stream with the gentleness of a bull elephant on the way to a late lunch.

The trout were long gone by the time he whipped his line back and fourth and sent it upstream in search of the"big one." He laughed and talked loudly about the beauty of the day and the mountains. I don't think anyone appreciated his life as much as he did--with the possible exception of his big sweet dog Zusie.

I always thought Jeffer would meet his maker in some kind of spectacular mountain event, like running into a tree while skiing on his 82nd birthday. But, he is wasting a way an inch at a time.

Jeffer is a lone wolf like me. His Mom and Dad, brother Scott, and sister Annie are the ones suffering the most because Jeffer's memory has been claimed by cancer.

The end is never fun and even though Jeffer may be around a long time, the Jeffer I knew is the guy in the picture I took a few years ago.

He will always be the happy-go-lucky Mountain Man who put life first and everything else, including the IRS, in a distant second place. That's a two howls up for this Mountain Man.

Jeffer is losing his battle with cancer but put a smile on your face. He won the war.

Good for you, Jeffer. Good for you!

Here's to Charlie

Charlie Senter was a sign painter. I followed him around Hartington, Nebraska when I was a boy and watched as he transformed the car and truck doors into interesting advertising for the local business folks. (He took time to redo the sides of my dad's wrecker so Miller Motor was shine and sparkle just as brightly as the People's Store delivery van.)

I watched Charlie demonstrate perfection. An empty door was in front of him and a tray full of brightly colored enamel paint was right next to him. He rough sketched what he wanted to do, and hopefully what the owner wanted him to do, on the car or truck door. Then he bagan to paint. He used a long stick with a little skin bean bag attached to the end of the stick. Later in my life, I would discover that stick was called a Mahl stick and no sign painter worth a lick could paint without it.

Charlie rested his brush with paint hand on the stick and used the other hand on the end opposite the bag to guide the paint hand in a perfect harmony of design. No a wiggle. Not a run. No line where there was not suppose to be a line. He was as perfect as a graphic computer printer with one exception. Charlie was human.

I was taken by Charlie's art and his ability to produce it. As summer came to a close, Charlie was on his way. I asked dad where Charlie was going. "South," he said. "My guess is Florida. He likes to spend his winters there."

I thought I might become a sign painter like Charlie. I got some paint from the body shop and a couple of brushes from Hergert Hardware and made my own stick with, at that time anyway, an unknown name. My lines didn't go where they were suppose to go. My paint ran. My designs looked like 1st grade stuff and I was at least an 8th grader. My frustration grew and before long, the paint went back to the body shop and the brushes into the trash. But Charlie was forever etched in my mind.

One day, the man who owned the Dairy Queen store stopped by the garage. He told dad that his sign out on the highway had seen better days and wondered if I could repaint it for him. He wanted a picture of a Dairy Queen cone and an arrow and the words, "1 mile" painted on it.

Dad assured him I could deliver. I was scared to death but a promise from dear ole' dad was as good as a blood oath. My quivering hand and mind set out on the task and a couple of days later, there was a new sign on the highway. Northern Natural Gas stopped by not long after that. But that was the end of my sign painting career. I was off to college and a careers in advertising and flying.

Now I am the old guy and they are right. Social Security isn't enough. Some say I played too hard during my life and here I am paying for it at the end. I would have to turn to something else. Perhaps another minimum wage job to tide me through.

But I have worked enough of those kind of jobs. I have seen the bad side of Best Buy and Value Place. No benies. No praise. No raise. And in some cases, downright danger.

What could I do that I could make some money doing; enjoy what's left of my life; and let me have some freedom.

Charlie would like the answer. After all, he was the wizard of sign painting and he painted a colorful vision of the future in a small boy's mind.

I decided to do splash painting on car windshields. (That's some of my work in the photos.) That type of painting doesn't have to be perfect. It has to get attention. It has to be colorful. And, it doesn't have to last more than a couple of weeks until the sale is over and the next opportunity presents itslef.

I will never be as good as Charlie was but there are plenty of people who think I am good enough. And that's good enough for me. After all, how many people have a guardian wizard in their back pocket for 54 years and a sudden love for Florida winters?

Cute logo don't you think?