John K. Flores: Friendship is the Christmas gift that never stops giving

In the New King James Bible, Proverbs 18:24 reads, “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”
In Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verses 9-10, reads, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up.”
Throughout the years what I’ve come to know is, most of my deepest, closest and lifelong friends were born out of our mutual love of hunting, fishing and other things that are done in the great outdoors.
Christmas is all about giving and long ago I also realized each one of them were a gift from God.
Over the years, the older I’ve gotten, it’s usually around Christmas where I begin to reminisce about the adventures those friends and I shared. Some of them were excruciatingly hard. They were the kind that challenged us as young men and out of it built our character and fortitude.
One of those life-friends is Ronnie Lee Elswick, who today lives in Alamogordo, New Mexico. We became friends in 1977, during my second year in the Air Force. Ronnie Lee was also in the Air Force at that time, and we met through his wife, who was babysitting my wife and my daughter Crystal.
Ronnie Lee was a country boy from West Virginia. He had this innate compass and therefore was never lost during our backpack excursions into the Sacramento Mountains hunting mule deer. I, on the other hand, required a little more time to sort things out when I got turned around.
It is in this country where everything is either straight up or down, and if not, on a steep slant. Always the dreamer of our small group, I would annually drop some bomb of an idea that always took planning and preparation to overcome the specific challenge.
One year while backpacking some 3½ miles from the nearest road, a cold front came through. It was one of those weather systems that brought miserable cold rain with brief interludes of frozen precipitation turning to ice.
Our camp consisted of what we could carry on our backs, which was pup tents and sleeping bags. The campfire was hard to keep going in the wet conditions and at night, our sleeping bags froze to the ground.
The next day the skies were blue, but our gear was wet — clothes, tent and sleeping bags. Instead of hunting we spent hours standing next to a bonfire in our boxer shorts drying clothes and bedding. Despite the hardship, we didn’t give up and the next day I killed a 10-point mule deer that Ronnie Lee helped me pack out.
Ronnie Lee also had a wisdom like what you would get from “The Waltons,” a 70s television drama depicting family life in rural West Virginia.
He once bought a Savage Model 110 bolt action rifle in a 30-06 caliber and paid what I thought was a lot for the gun. I said to him, “Wow, is it worth it?”
He replied, “It’s worth it to me!”
I’ve never forgotten those words and often think of them before spending money on something. “Is it worth it to me?” Those words have saved me a lot of money over the years, and they came with the gift of friendship that cost me nothing.
Another dear friend, Ricky Guidry, not only was someone I hunted with on a lease we shared but was also someone who was my prayer partner. Once a week for several years, we would fast and pray one lunch hour. We’d pray about all sorts of things from our community to our church, the sick and our families.
Rick the hunter was a guy that got all excited about the hunt and kill, whether from the deer stand or duck blind in the marsh. But up in town, he was a soft-spoken, mild-mannered man that knew how to pray.
On one of our prayer days, that morning I had had a small spat with my wife. I asked Rick if he minded us praying for peace. In his soft-spoken voice what he said spoke louder than a hell fire and brimstone preacher at a tent meeting saying, “What stupid thing did you say to Christine?”
Those words saved me from perhaps a night or two in the doghouse. What’s more, they also came with the gift of friendship that cost me nothing.
I shared more duck and goose blinds than I can remember with Jerry Gauthier.
My wife and I met Jerry and his wife Marty at church and we became close where eventually Christine would babysit their son Jason during those infant and toddler years.
Jerry, in one of our philosophical exchanges in the duck blind, taught me “No is an OK answer.” Our deep discussions and the integrity he walked with served me well in my career. His friendship and wisdom came as a gift and it too, cost me nothing.
I met Jimmy Wilson when I moved to Louisiana in 1984. What’s more, he has been my closest friend ever since. Early on in our friendship I would invite our family to his house on Sundays to watch the New Orleans Saints and eat his barbecue chicken.
Christine would say to me, “You can’t invite yourself like that!”
I remember replying, “Why? He’s, my friend!”
Jimmy and his wife Pauline’s children and our kids grew up together and today are lifelong friends as well.
Jimmy is a storyteller and missed his calling as comedian. I’ve heard his, “John tried to kill me in the marsh routine,” numerous times.
It never gets old. It is one of those you had to be there stories and is based on putting up a wooden deer stand built from discarded power line timbers in the early fall when the temperature is still in the 90s.
Proverbs 17:22 says: A joyful heart is good medicine. His friendship and ability to make me laugh came as a gift to me and it too, cost me nothing.
Ricky Guidry and Jerry Gauthier have gone on to be with the Lord. They both ran their race here on earth, where I’m sure they were greeted by the Lord who said, “Well done good and faithful servants.”
As we celebrate Christmas, Jesus is the reason for the season. He came as a gift to the entire world.
In John 15:15 (NIV), He says to His disciples, “I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
Merry Christmas, my friends!
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.