I received word that one of my students from last year was killed in a drive-by shooting. This saddened me a great deal as I knew this young man quite well and had frequent conversations with him. He wasn’t a bad kid, but he lived in a bad situation and spent way too much time on the streets. There was always an argument, a grudge, something going on, and he lived by that creed. It is such a shame.

I was thinking about this after I dropped Aubree off at school and drove through my old neighborhood before getting on the highway and speeding off to work. I passed a block where new houses where springing up on a city block that was once a baseball field with a large empty field.

We used to frequent this area often, climbing over the fence to play baseball and horsing around in the bleachers. In the summertime the large empty field was often overgrown and seemed to be a magnet for every bee in the neighborhood. When you walked or drove your bike through the field you often got stung. Yes, we could always just walk around, but it was a testosterone test of manhood to go through the field. We used to line our bikes up at the edge of the field and race through it, our theory being that if you rode fast enough the bees couldn’t sting you. You just had to be faster, stronger, smarter than the bees. It didn’t always work out….one of my friends was riding his bike through there, a bee flew into his open mouth and stung him on the roof of his mouth. Still, we persevered, always convinced that we could beat those bees.

My young student had his own bees, but like us he didn’t think he would get stung. He chose to ride through the field, not being able to see another way. He got stung and a promising young life was snuffed out in an instant.

I was talking to another student a couple of weeks ago who is still wearing bandages from being shot this past summer. He was running away and the bullet passed through his ribs and went into his hand. But for a precious inch or two he would have been a statistic as well. He was somewhat fatalistic, shrugging his shoulders and saying, "I got lucky. It just wasn't my time." He is still just dodging the bees.

I hope he doesn't get stung too.