[Guest3]

Last October, some of you met my friend Denny. He stopped by my house during the gathering I had at my home after the BOC meeting in Washington PA to drop off pies.

See, I didn't have time with everything that was going on to bake pies, and Denny loves to bake. So, I asked him to make me pies for the party and he brought me two beautiful pies, which we all shared.

I planned to bake him a pie today- instead, I ended up baking two. See, Denny passed away this morning. I'm on my way to meet friends, and eat pie, and celebrate his life.

He was the biggest practical joker that ever lived, a good friend, a fantastic banjo player, and an avid hunter.

Bye my friend. I miss you already!

 

[Guest3]

Larry,

You may have eaten some of his pie.

Tonight gave us all a lot of reasons to pause and think about the really REALLY important stuff.

Like, old grudges. They vanished. I watched people that hadn't talked in years embrace. I watched tears roll from faces that rarely crack smiles.

Tonight was special, and Denny commanded the evening.

Denny looked just like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizzard of Oz. JUST like him!

For his birthday one year, we had a party and had a HUGE fake driver's license made with the Cowardly Lion's photo (Payback's are DennyF's (aka another name for a female dog, lol) on it, and we took his picture with the near life sized picture.

He had the biggest smile on his face-

He prooved he was like the Cowardly Lion too. See, Denny had "Courage".

He once sat in a beer cooler for 45 minutes and challanged all of us to sit longer than he.

None of us had the "courage" to sit in there.

Learned an important lesson tonight from him though as we celebrated his life.

Denny didn't want any of us to have "Courage".

He wanted us all to have a heart. Because when you have a heart, you have the courage to put your differences behind you and move forward.

We all could learn something from Denny.

Dang it, I hate to cry.