I was surprised at the crowd.

I had walked the five blocks down to the lodge building, leaving my wife to attend the day's auction. And saw vehicles and people funneling to the west door.

They had the ceremony in the lodge room on the third floor. Essentially a large, square, high-ceiling, wooden-floored dance room, with windows on the east and west walls. Dark wood thrones on each of the cardinal walls, with majestic mounts of large, six-point bull elk above each throne.

Banners with painted bull elk portraits hung from the ceiling in each corner. Century-old heirlooms lost and forgotten in the attic until the centennial celebrations a year ago. A small altar in the middle of the room, with a small set of raghorn antlers and an American flag.

They used all the comfortable lodge chairs, all the plastic cafeteria chairs, and even brought out every folding metal chair in the place. And still there were folks lined up along the walls. I counted 15 rows of 8 chairs each, and about 40-50 people along the walls.

Quite a testament to a quiet life.

The lodge officers filed in, in casual clothes, as I suspect he would have preferred, and then turned to take their places on their respective thrones.

The ceremony began with the chiming of the 11^th Hour, the hour of remembrance. Absolute silence, except for the chime of the pipes. And then the final roll call for the missing member.

A call that cannot be answered.

I am not a member of this organization, but this is the second memorial service of theirs that I have attended, and the rituals are touching.

After the lodge rituals and speeches, an officer in full military regalia strode purposefully up the center aisle, bearing a tri-fold American flag. When reading his obit, I had been surprised to learn Ernie had served aboard PT-boats during WWII. Another land-lubbing country boy on the Pacific. With a brief stop at the altar and unfurled banner, the officer made crisp turns to place himself directly in front of the seated widow.

And then slowly bent forward to present her with the triangle of blue, with white stars.

A slow salute, followed by another crisp turn and a stately walk to the side wall, and the ceremonial portion of this memorial was complete.

Then came the stand-up comedy routine (really!) of two nephews (now, one of them is a grandfather in his own right, so these men aren't young). With remarks about making sure the tall one stands on the stage so the bolts from heaven will hit him first (the deceased had insisted on no services, so they figured this memorial might just get by).

Their personal jabs at their uncle, and a few ribald tales from his life were then followed by dedicated poems and song from daughters and granddaughters. And then readings of memories written by family and friends. Some serious, most humorous, some written by family who knew not what to say, some stories going back a half century. And all sincere.

All this about a man who told his grand-nephew the best fishing worms were found under cowpies. And after the lad had kicked over a few dried piles, informed him he really needed to get the worms from the fresh piles. By kicking them as hard as he could.

His Connecticutt kin remembered bragging about their relative who lived in a log house at the end of a very long dirt road. Not being that close to the family, of course none of my memories were included. But most of mine involve getting rescued from that remote piece of country.

I have made two five-mile hikes to that log house for help.

The first time we met was a rescue mission. The cold winter night he and his son came out to help me dig my rig out of the snow-filled ditch about a mile from their place. I had been further north classifying elk, and had driven across the top of the snow going in. But the snow collapsed on the return trip, and I was surprised to find my wheels suspended a good 4-6 feet above ground.

That's a lot of digging. In the dark and the wind. A radio call for help was heard by a nearby warden, whose relay to dispatch brought a phone call to the folks at the ranchhouse whose lights I could barely see.

Never a word of complaint or reprimand as the three of us excavated a Ford by hand. The next day, though, I did notice my brand new spade had been replaced with a worn-out one that had seen decades of hard work in rocky soils.

A fair trade.