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Last year, I decided to name this column “A Wee Blether” because of eight good years I spent as a child in Scotland a quarter of a century ago.

They were unremarkable childhood years, but now, looking back, they seem magical.

We lived on the northeast Scottish coast where the moors meet the sea, and where the gin-clear River Nairn pours the melted snow of the Highlands into the Moray Firth and the North Sea. We’re talking Travel Channel-beautiful. We’d bike through stunning landscapes adults traveled the world just to glimpse.

My Scottish friends made my life there great, wee lads and lasses who welcomed this twang-talking Louisiana boy into their village world.

But I most remember the summer evenings when the days refused to end, lingering in a glowing, orangey dusk until midnight. We’d finally return home and slump into bed after midnight, utterly spent from riding bikes, running through the woods and playing endless hours of football in fields where we used sweaters to mark the goal posts.

My family’s friends had great Scottish names: Alister, Gordon, Nessie and Bae. Their surnames were even better, crunching like green apples when you say them: McGillvary, Tulloch, Gilchrist and McPherson.

The toughest, coolest kid I ever knew was Philip Berry. He was a solid, handsome boy, and if there was a little harmless agro between us and any rival kids in the village, Phil always knew what to do.

But he knew not to mess with Rudy. Rudy was just as tough, and he feared nothing. He was the kind of kid who’d play goalkeeper and, if there was a disputed hand-ball, Rudy would argue it was a handball just so he’d have a chance to save the penalty.

My family left Nairn in 1978, but part of my soul stayed.

Turns out Phil left, too. He moved to England, met the love of his life and they now live in a coastal village with their children.

But then, he was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. He’s been fighting it for a long time, but his prognosis isn’t good. In June, an old friend e-mailed me and said it could be a matter of weeks.

It also turns out when tough-guy Rudy found out about Phil’s cancer, Rudy moved to help look after Phil and his family while Phil underwent treatments. Goodness often comes in surprising packages.

By the time this magazine comes out, Phil may already be gone. But summer in Nairn should just about be blooming, and the days will stretch out and linger so long that, to the children, they’ll feel like forever.