We're thinking about Paul "The Wall" Matthies again today, and we're thinking this is the picture we'll most remember him by, standing tall in the north woods with his mouth shut, letting his stringer of fish do the talking.
Other old photographs show his kindness: building a cedar deck for his friends, assembling a complex barbecue grill for another, acting as designated Winnebago driver on a booze cruise to Wisconsin, paddling an old man through the Quetico wilderness, then volunteering to extinguish a raging brush fire before it could take out the forest.
There's some video too, of a good man hunting pheasants in South Dakota, cleaning fish in Canada, golfing in LA's Griffith Park, and joining in a stout all-male chorus of "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" inside an ice house on The Lake of the Woods.
That big box holds a ton of wonderful memories, which is a very good thing, because it is what we have left, now that our dear friend has gone.
