The sign on the door says Gone Fishin'

Greg Bean

Coda

If you're reading this and have a complaint that I'm not writing about taxes, corruption or weighty issues this week (is my boss listening?), I can't help you.

That's because I'm on the Middle Fork of the Powder River in Wyoming, enjoying the scenery on a friend's ranch and trying to coax a fat trout into taking my dry fly.

To the west of me are the Bighorn Mountains, and a cool summer breeze is drifting down their darkly timbered flanks. North is Hole in the Wall, where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out from lawman Joe LeFors. To the east are the rolling grasslands of Johnson County, where the action in the mega-flop "Heaven's Gate" took place. To the south are the badlands canyon country and oil fields of Teapot Dome, site of the famous scandal. The smell of sagebrush is in the air.

This river, these hills, are holy ground for me. I first came here with my father and grandfather, and I've traveled this tributary a hundred times with family and friends. And my, the adventures - most fun, some actually life threatening - I've had on the Powder, its canyons and foothills. When I die, this is where they'll spread my ashes, because this place is as close to Heaven as I may ever come.

Scattered along the stream are my youngest brother, a nephew, my stepfather and at least two of my best friends. We aren't worried about how many fish we'll catch, because we let them all go anyway. It's enough to listen to the soft burble of the river and lay down a particularly nice cast.

This evening, we'll watch the mule deer come down to drink, and then we'll likely stop at the Invasion Bar (named for the invasion of the county by hired gunslingers in the Johnson County War) in Kaycee for a buffalo burger and a cold beer. Tomorrow, we'll be fishing the next ranch over, a beautiful spread at the mouth of Outlaw Canyon. My friend says there are some big browns hanging in the pools and dark corners of the river that go 6 pounds.

Last time I caught a trout that big on a fly, he hit so hard he pulled me face first into the river and stripped a hundred yards of line before he took refuge in the tangle of a beaver dam and snapped the leader. If I hook up with a lunker like that tomorrow, I'll let you know when I come back.

Truth is, I've been dreaming about this trip for months, through all the gray months of the New Jersey winter and an especially wet spring. I need these occasional trips to my home country, not only to reconnect with the land that nourished my body and soul for the first 30 years of life, but to renew my bonds with family and best friends.

For several years, it's seemed the only times we've been able to get together were for sad occasions, funerals of family members and the like.

This time, we're meeting for happy occasions - the marriage of my beautiful niece, this fishing trip, and a "Big Chill" party planned for later in the week when many of the friends of my youth will gather to talk over old times and compare gray hair.

A couple of weeks ago, I read about a Duke University study published in the American Sociological Review that found most people don't have as many close friends as they used to.

According to a Reuters news service story about the study, almost a quarter of the people surveyed said they had no close friends with whom to discuss personal matters, and more than 50 percent said they had two or fewer close friends.

That is apparently down from 1985, when most Americans reported they had about three close friends, and the trend has folks worried. They blame the Internet, e-mail and cell phones for the decline, as well as the fact that since we're working more, marrying later, having fewer children and commuting greater distances, we have less time for things like maintaining friendships.

I have another explanation, at least for those of us in our middle years. Fact is, as we get older, more of the people we consider true friends die or simply fade away, and while we keep making plenty of friends and acquaintances, we stopped making "best friends" years and years ago.

I don't know how it is with you, but there are about five or six people on the planet whom I would consider best friends.

All of those friendships were formed when we were very young and have lasted most of a lifetime, through grand times and times when it seemed there was simply no hope. As best friends, we accept each other completely, warts and all. We know the absolute worst about each other, and love each other anyway. Among us, there are no masks, no pretentions, only the gift of unconditional friendship.

These friends are the kind of people who wouldn't hesitate if I called and said, "Listen, I'm sneaking out of town this afternoon to escape the police, and I need to hide out in your basement for six or eight months. You'll have to feed me, of course, and pay all of my expenses - and if the coppers find me, I'll expect you to help me hold 'em off."

"No problem," they'd say. "You sounded pretty stressed the last time we talked, and a change would probably do you good. If we're not home when you get here, the key's under the mat."

And not once in that conversation would they ask what I'd done to get John Law on my back trail in the first place. Best friends don't ask questions like that.

They agree with Mark Twain, who said, "The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right."

They agree with the great philosopher and comedian Dave Attell, who said, "Friends help you move. Best friends help you move bodies."

They agree with my best friend Jeff, who once said, "A best friend is someone who's seen you make a damned fool of yourself, and will still go out with you in public."

According to that Duke University study, I have been blessed with a bounty of friends. I aim to tell them how much they mean to me while we're on the river. Chances to do that don't come often enough.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.