There's a special day every summer in the little Colorado town I call home. A founder's Day celebration called, oddly enough Missouri Days. Apparently my adopted hometown was settled by folks from that state and the name stuck for the celebration. So every year my sleepy little village in inundated w/returning high school reunion classes and families, friends and basically everybody and his/her dog.

     There's a parade in the morning followed by a day in the park w/picnics, cute baby contests, talent shows, horseshoes and various Norman Rockwellabilia in the park. The day ends w/a dance in the park, carousing in the Beer Garden and basically a good time is had by all. I worked the night shift (2-11pm) the entire weekend so I can attest to the revelry. It's usually a great day for the town all around.

     I say 'usually' because this year was different and I daresay, will be different from now on for some of us in Fowler. On Sunday morning, the day following the parade/dance etc., my boss' husband was driving their 2 sons to a baseball game. He's a coach on their team as well as the local H.S wrestling team.  Turning onto one country road from another his car was hit and their oldest son didn't make it.

     I've only known the family for the 6 months our store's been open, but it's been long enough to get to like these people. My boss's husband (I'm not using names out of respect for the family) would come into the store on a daily basis w/the kids, helping out his wife at the store, taking the kids to work construction w/him. I'd never seen a tighter family unit. I'd never met more decent people.

   So, I like the town, am walking around a little dazed, a little lost and, although I can't speak for anyone else, I'm pretty angry about the whole thing. This was a good kid. With good, caring, involved parents. Getting stuck in trying to 'make sense' of a sensless tragedy, an accident where there is no sense tends to do that to a person, make them angry that is.

   Which of course serves nothing and solves nothing. So we press on. The only thing positive I can do is work the store; that's where I'm needed. But you feel helpless in the face of such random cruelty. Right now I'm angry at the unfairness of it all and all I can do is work. It seems so insufficient, but it's what I can do so I do it.

     So, tomorow I'm going to the funeral w/basically the entire town. I will cry for my boss's family, I will cry again for the mindlessness of such a death. I will cry again for the loss of a vibrant, innocent child. And I will probably punch out the 1st idiot who claims it was 'god's will'. Anyone who would begin to call this 'god's will' or any such crap in the face of a family's devastation is as thoughtless, if not as evil, as any god who could do such a thing. Maybe that's why I refuse to believe in god: I can neither fathom nor abide the use for any so called god that would allow this type of thing to happen.

    Better to be adrift in a random universe than at the hands of such a hateful imagination.

(ps Jim, if you have any decency, leave this one alone, ok?)