Remembering Bud Block

Summer weather seems to have returned, but nights are cooler, aspen and larch are changing color so it is almost fall and time to reflect on the summer that is about to pass into memory.

First thing that comes to my mind are the people who have passed from our lives forever. Two were North Fork old timers that I knew for over 30 years Ed "Mac" McNeil and Bud Block, both in their 90s.

I talked about Mac in an earlier column but just heard about Bud this week. I first knew Bud Block in 1949 when I was 12 years old and he was in his mid-20s. His parents, Walter and Ethyl, bought the Price homestead on Trail Creek and became close friends of my parents, Ross and Louise, and were our closest neighbors.

In those early days on The North Fork, Bud and his older brother Dan were my heroes. They made their living working on The North Fork trapping, working for the Forest Service and staying in The North Fork year round while I had to go to town in the winter to attend school.

Later, our life patterns kind of switched when I went into the post and pole business in the woods and Bud and his wife lived in town and owned Bud Block Service and Appliances, a top notch service business which is still owned and operated by Bud's family today.

Although our lifestyles changed Bud and Zelma kept their North Fork cabin and I guess we spent hundreds of hours there talking about how The North Fork was and the changes we had seen over a 50-year-plus span.

One thing never changed-Bud's smile and voice. Anyone who saw a picture of him when he was 25 would instantly recognize him at 89 just by his smile, which was almost always on his face. That is what I will always remember, just as I will always miss it.

Both Mac and Bud lived long, full lives and even as we miss them we recognize the limits we all have and know we won't get out of this alive. Other deaths this summer are not so easy to accept.

A young man drowned in the river. Another killed in an ATV accident leaving behind two young sons. My heart goes out to both families who now have to go on without loved ones.

We will also remember this summer for its odd weather, low water levels, smoke-filled skies, the job of seeing summer friends returning and the sadness when they go back to winter homes.

Good times, bad times, happy times, sad times. Another, mostly, great summer on The North Fork. What do you think?