I Miss My Friend Jim Ed

I was in the middle of writing a story about something else, when I got thinking about an old friend who recently passed away from cancer. I was inspired to stop that story and turn to doing this one.

My friend was country music artist Jim Ed Brown. I can truly call him a friend, not just some artist that I got to know or simply interviewed on the radio or introduced on stage at a concert.

Not at all. Jim Ed was really a friend. The friendship all came to be when he started coming to this area around ten years ago for pheasant hunting for youths incorporated with doing a show in neighboring Parker, South Dakota.

• Life of Jim Ed Brown Celebrated at His Funeral in Nashville

After several years of getting together promoting the event, having dinners the night before and so on, we got to be close friends. A lot of those dinners weren't out at some fancy steakhouse, but instead sitting in a living room eating sloppy Joe's.

The last time I talked to him was the morning of his birthday on April 1, 2015. I called him to tell him Happy Birthday, and he was so excited. We were live on the radio, and he told me to come to Nashville that day and we would celebrate and stay out late at night and the whole deal.

I wish I would have gone, because just over two months later on June 11, he passed away. I really miss my friend Jim Ed Brown.

I would have never dreamed back in 1967 that someday I would be friends with him. You never know what the future has in store for you.

Speaking of Jim Ed and 1967, let's go back there with this: