“Women in the family always need help, as for the men – they should be fine.  Always look out for your own,” had been one of Ol’Brown’s many sayings.  The wisdom Ol’Brown provided for Colter extended further into the idiosyncrasies the two came to share.  Ol’Brown had shown Colter how to roll his own cigarettes, licking the brown paper slick, before mashing it smartly between your thumb and forefinger.


“A real man roll his own.  You get quality that way.  No one ever cheats themself,” Ol’ Brown would say.


On Colter’s seventeenth birthday, Ol’ Brown lent him Cheryll.


“Since here you have no uncles.  I be your uncle.  There are things men should know.” he said.

Colter Wayne Hobbes