A Bulge from Tom

When I was growing up, I was an extremely lucky individual Not lucky in the sense that I found money, or had good fortune just fall upon me from nowhere. NO,I was lucky because from the time I was old enough to remember, I always had two best friends. This was the case until i was about sixteen years old. I didn't lose them as friends, we just didn't see each other as often.

One of my best friends was Scott. We grew up in the same town ,went to the same school, were in the same class and did just about everything together.That was for ten months of the year .

The other two months, my best friend was Tom Stinson(Tommy)
Tommy lived in Thunder Bay , Ontario and his parents had a summer camp at Silver Islet. My family lived in Hudson,Quebec but were from Thunder Bay and had a camp just three houses away from the Stinson's. My father was a teacher and had about 2 months off every summer so we went to camp.

At Silver Islet, there are no phones, no running water and no electricity. What better place for two young adventurous boys to spend their summer We were like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.Tom was Tom and I was more to the Huck side.

Year after year when we would arrive at camp, the first thing I would do was run down to the Stinson's to see if Tommy was home."Wanna do something after supper""You bet"

Most evenings we would head off fishing at Lake Surprise. We would catch perch after perch after perch. Occasionally, if we were really lucky we might even catch a Speckled trout. I remember one time we saw a beaver swimming about a hundred yards from where we were and not two minutes later we caught a trout.That beaver became a lucky symbol for us. Of course, when we got home we had to take a movie of us catching this trout off the end of the dock. I took a turn and then Tommy took a turn. You would have thought we caught a marlin.

Often,we would just play in the forest around Silver Islet We never considered the fact that there were bears, If you met one, you either ran between two trees close together and when the bear hugged the tree you slipped out and ran away Or if you couldn't find some trees, you would just have to stick your arm down his throat, grab his tail and turn him inside out and he would be going the other way. Thank goodness, we never had to try either of these methods.

The best times were when we were at the edge of the lake. Silver Islet is on the north shore of Lake Superior and the rocks at the shore are pretty big. Tommy and I could run along those rocks like mountain goats in the Rockies. We used to play tag down there, jumping from rock to rock and not worrying about falling.

We also had a seaway. Every year we would clear the channel of rocks the winter had moved in and every year we would extend the seaway a little more in length. It had been started by my older brother and his friends. We would make tugs and freighters out of old scrap 2x4 , tie them to a piece of string on a stick and spend many very happy hours being the captains of our very own boats. We would play there day after day hour after hour, happy as pigs in mudhole.

In the evenings my dad would go fishing on Lake Superior and I would go with him. I always wanted Tommy to go too. What's fishing without your beast friend?

We would do so much together.We went camping, garter snake hunting to throw at girls, just made pests of ourselves. One year we even made a home made trap to catch a ground hog.We really were inseparable.

Growing up in the fifties and early sixties there was great fun. Tommy was a great friend and when it came to doing something we might get in trouble for, I must admit I was Huck Finn and he was Tom Sawyer.

Unfortunately, Tommy passed away a few years ago. We are often told that when we lose someone we love, there is a hole left in our hearts where they were. This is true. But I also think that love doesn't just leave a hole but creates a bulge in our soul where it takes up residence. We become better people as our souls grow with the love of people we have known and loved. The more bulges the better.

So Tommy, Thanks for the bulge!