This time last year

[Swanky]

Hard to believe, one year since a mate of mine passed.

I say a mate, but I hardly knew him.

For the 5 years leading up to this year, my cousin and 2 of his mates would come over form Victoria to watch the Aussies play cricket on Australia Day.

All 4 of us would stay in the city for a few days, drinking, giving each other shit and basicly having a good time.

Well last year we went to the cricket, the night before Shagga (Jason's nickname) had to stop on the way to a pub for a pub poker game, because he had a sore chest and was short of breathe.

He was on tablets for it and after a minute he was right as rain, he said he was fine and he looked a million times better than he did 2 minutes before.

He said he was fine and we were good to party. He insisted we move on to the pub.

We played cards, we drank shed loads, then headed to the casino, where we lost more money and drank shed loads more.

The next morning we woke up with horrible hangovers, then made the short walk to Adelaide Oval for the cricket.

We drank bucket loads of beer in scorching heat and watched the Aussies win.

We drank more that night and lost more cash at the Casino, we had a great time!

In the morning, we got up had breaky, then about lunch time, I drove the boys to the airport.

That would be the last time I saw Shagga.

Shagga and our other mate (also called Jason) caught a bus from the airport home.

After getting off the bus and walking about 200m, Shagga collapsed.

He had a massive heat attack and died.

He went out with a massive bang, his heart was no good, and it just gave up the ghost.

I say he was a mate, but I hardly knew him, he came over here for a few years with my cousin and another mate.

And I would catch up with him and my cousin for a few beers when I was in Vic.

But when we were together, for those brief moments, all for of us had an absolute blast.

So sure, I knew this guy for a total of around 50 days maybe. But it was 50 days of awesome.

I'll miss you Shagga and here's a bourbon in your eye!

[JMACK007]

Nice words mate.