Out Past the Cornfields Where the Woods Got Heavy

Congratulations to Mr. Joey Halbert for correctly naming "Stand by Me" by Oasis as the Monday Song of the Day.

One night during my time at ACU, my friends and I had a conversation about our high school experience. Specifically talk turned in a morbid direction when we started discussing how many of our classmates had died during high school. Someone turned to me and asked about Whitehouse and I could only respond, "My high school is like the Kennedy family."

I don't mean that to make light of tremendous loss, but due to the fact that two Whitehouse High students have died in the past two weeks in auto accidents (one due to excessive speed, and one due to drunk driving), I cannot help but think that my high school years were surrounded by more than the usual share of tragedy. It wasn't just car wrecks that took students too early, there were suicides and overdoses as well.

I know that every high school has its share of students who drive too fast, drive drunk, or get a little bit out of control, but the combination of high school drivers, serpentine roads, and a small margin of error for wrecks due to the trees that line the roadways of East Texas lead to a very unforgiving atmosphere in our corner of the globe.

As I read through Ken Dornstein's account of losing his brother in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988, I was once again struck by the fact that simply because someone's turn on the stage of life is finished, this does not mean that they don't find their way into all kinds of nooks and crannies of our lives where we never expected to find them. I've never lost someone incredibly close to me, but when I do, I kind of want them to keep popping up in the most surprising of ways simply so I do not forget how they shaped and molded me into who I am.