KOSCIUSKO — An old buddy that joined the Marine Corps with me almost forty years ago came to visit this weekend. 

Really he came to visit my son, which he is his uncle and my ex-brother in law. 

He comes once a year for an annual hog hunt with my son and to visit.

This year was like years past, no hog. 

As usual they have moved further up the swamp. 

We always have good fellowship and good eating. 

This year my son fixed wild hog tenderloin smoked on the grill with deer tenderloin roll ups for hors d'oeuvres one night and rib eye steaks with deer smoked sausage the next night. 

So like I said we always eat good no matter if the weather cooperates. 

It was so cold we were hugging the grill for heat both evenings.

My wife and I raised my twin sons from the time they were two years old as they were from my first marriage. 

She is the real hero here as she married into a ready-made family and later we had another son. 

She always said she felt like she lived in a hunting camp or gym with all the abundance of testosterone, especially when the boys hit their teen years. 

I say all of this not to get personal but as a way of explanation as ex-kin folks of any kind can be a little awkward.

Young married couples let me give a little free advice. 

If you are pondering divorce, don't think it is just you two involved, especially if you have children. 

It will affect many others. 

You will have a lifetime of weddings, funerals, new babies, etc where you will still have contact with exes.  Enough preaching!

Terry may be an ex-brother in law but still a brother in the Corps as "once a Marine, always a Marine".

We went to Parris Island to boot camp together and they say that once you bleed, cry, and sweat together you become close. 

Over the years we have grown apart, both in miles and spirit. 

That connection we made forty years ago will always have us sown together no matter how frayed and ragged the stitches become. 

I remember during boot camp Terry loved milk.  We couldn't have soft drinks or coffee, only milk juice, Kool-Aid or water. 

Terry would drink milk every morning and during our after breakfast run he would throw up all of it. 

Any of you that know anything about Marine Corps DI's, you know that you don't stop, you keep going. 

I tried to get him to drink water but he said he loved milk even if he had to taste it twice. This went on for the entire boot camp.

I remember a time we made a Greyhound bus trip home from Camp LeJuene, NC to Birmingham. 

We had a quarter between us and split a pack of nabs. 

By the time we hit Birmingham we were starved to death or so we thought. 

Our folks sent us back to fulfill our duty with a full stomach. 

Terry always loved coming to Mississippi and we made a few trips here before we went to boot camp. 

Trying to get ready for boot camp we would run back and forth to the Bear Creek Bridge.  We cut the levee on my uncle's pond by hand with picks and shovels. 

They were going to have to drain it for widening of the road. 

We set out hooks on Lobutcher Creek for catfish and on one such trip Terry lost his 22 pistol and we never found it. 

On another fishing trip we came back to my car to find a flat and the spare flat also. 

We had to walk three or four miles (no cell phones in those days)

Speaking of that 22 pistol, it was cursed from day one. 

Terry was playing with it and accidentally shot a hole through his bedroom window. 

A bad cloud was developing overhead and I told Terry that I had to go before the bottom fell out. 

We didn't know at the time but that cloud held several tornadoes, one of which did damage to Terry's house. 

I told him that was a heck of a way to keep from having to explain a bullet hole in his window.  

My sister and her boyfriend (now brother in law) were stranded on the other side of town (again no cell phones). 

So we spent a worrisome night as the National Guard was called out and many roads were closed. 

The next day as the sun shined on the devastation, Terry and I got another pre boot camp workout running chain saws, removing debris and helping friends.

Terry reminded me of a time him and I were riding to town with my great uncle who dipped that old powered snuff in a tin can. 

He went to spit out the window, forgot it was up and spit all over the window along with the backsplash. 

Naturally he let a curse word fly and Terry and I were laughing so hard our bellies hurt.

I could go on and on about that spring and early summer we spent before boot camp. 

I reckon we tried to live a lifetime before boot camp as we didn't know what Uncle Sam and The USMC had in store for us. 

Anyway, Semper Fi old buddy. 

On the Porch with Dirk is a recurring article written by Dirk Thayer, an avid outdoorsman and storyteller.