Bird and all, That was right here in our community, very close to home. I didn't know the family. The boy was a kindergartener at the same school where our twins go, and although they are in kinder too, he was in a different classroom.
The school thought it best to tell the children what had happened. They had counselors available. Our two don't seem to know the boy, except by name, and don't seem to be affected. But they really don't seem to understand it either.
It was kind of a bad weekend for me. Beside this, Friday an old friend passed away. I worked for him when I was a teenager, and he owned a gas station. His real love was ranching, buying, selling, and trading cattle. Horses too. The first horse I every bought, I bought from him.
Yesterday he was buried on the South Texas plain he loved, and they played Cattle Call, and his favorite Marty Robbins songs for him one last time. He was a good man, and one of the last of a dying breed. Although 81, the morning before he died he had been out buying some cattle. The way I see it not many people get to do something they love right up to the end.
Ernie
" We would rather die in these ditches, than give them up to the enemy" James Bowie
