Today, April 8, 2014, we celebrated Reed McBride’s final day on earth.  The ceremony took place in Malad, Idaho and in Hyrum, Utah and what a beautiful day it was…warm, very Spring like and everyone in attendance were sad, but still as cheery as could be under the circumstances.  Reed touched so many of us in so very many ways, I can not tell you all of them.  His wife, Shirley, was surrounded by their family and it was a very nice sight to see.

I was very pleased with the services at the Malad LDS church house.  The speakers were excellent and painted such a wonderful tribute to Reed’s life.  A life that I knew was going on, but had never imagined how others were perceiving it.  I knew Reed as, first off, Shirley’s husband, and secondly as Pale Rider, in our mountain man circle.  Reed was a wonderful man, always caring, always giving, always there whenever the need was there.  A nicer man could not be found.  Actually, I have to back up a little on that statement.  He was equal to a lot of nice people I have known in my life who have passed on and in my mind, he has rejoined those other “a nicer person could not be found” who have been a friend or family member of mine and fell into that category.

Reed loved life and he lived it to the fullest.  In his work, in his play!  When you find an honest man like him with the sense of humor he had, you just can’t help but like him.  I can’t say as I EVER saw him with a frown on his face.  He might have had a “serious” face a time or two, but never a frown….more often than not a BIG OLD SMILE!  He must have slept with a smile on his face…and who wouldn’t sleeping next to a bride like Shirley….Just sayin!

Yes it was a top of the line service for a top of the line guy.  The speakers were wonderful, the songs very fitting and in the final minutes of the tribute, he was carried to the cemetery in an old fashioned two horse Hearst, followed by his Good Friend Blair Higley, leading his riderless horse to the grave side services.  Reed was one of the last of the real Western Cowboys.  He will be missed.  I’m very glad I was blessed to be a small part of his life.  I was happy to see some of the folks who I met at rendezvous over the years because of Reed and Shirley, what’s not to love about all of them?  Nothing.

I’m pleased to know that Reed didn’t have to endure a long struggle with an ugly illness and that he went as quickly as he did.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair to lose someone so close and so young, but in this temporal life of ours, he is back home and we will someday be reunited with him and the other “a nicer person could not be found”‘s that enter into our lives and then are taken away before we are.

I love you Shirley!  I love you all.

Bears Butt

April 8, 2014