LIFE IS FUNNY (NOT HA! HA!) SOMETIMES

As a high school softball coach of a team struggling mightily with a 1-11 record, it's easy to get frustrated and wonder why things are going so badly. Then, you get a dose of reality and realize that softball is a game and it should be fun for the kids and the coaches and the parents.

Early in the day, you get an e-mail message that one of your former students -- somewhat troubled, sort of fun loving, easily distracted -- died in a traffic accident over the week-end. You remember some of the crazy things you saw him do in class or in the hallway or outside of school. You have good memories (mixed with the frustrating kind ...) and you wonder how his parents are handling things. You remember meeting with them and talking about choices and things like that just a few shorts years ago and only hoping that he would turn things around sometime. Then, that message comes though and the only thing you can think is, "He is the classic example of someone who lives fast and dies young."

Later that night, you're watching the 9&10 News out of northern Michigan. Ben Kwan says he's going to be live from Montcalm County with a report about a huffing death over the week-end. You think, "Well, Montcalm County is large and I haven't heard anything about it, so this is a far way thing." Then, you watch the news and it happened right next door in Edmore. A 14-year-old high school freshman from Montabella goes to a birthday party, huffs some Lysol or something and dies. It's a tragic event, made worse when the father goes to the house with a gun to "investigate" the death. He's in jail now.

Life is strange in that way. It's strange how things operate. The day comes full circle because you're coaching a team in Montcalm County and one of the players on the team is your own 14-year-old freshmen daughter. Kind of makes us all face the reality that a struggling softball team is nothing in the big scheme of life, eh?

Thanks for tuning in for a late night report! Have a great day ....