day of mourning

I know that this date brings with it a lot of emotion for a lot of reasons. After hearing some news this morning, I'll have an additional reason to be reflective on this date.

Sadly, Douglas Foreman was killed in an automobile accident last evening. Doug was an enormously proud father, a husband who had great love for his wife, and a guy who's entusiasm for life was infectious. He'll be missed by anyone who had the pleasure of spending any time with him.

In rememberance, I'm reposting a story about him that ran previously in the blog:



Tuesday, April 04, 2006
rock garden

Occassionally I run into people who find my actions and reactions to be a bit excessive. So i find it a nice balance when I find someone on the other side of the line, someone who shares my sense of fairness and justice.

This weekend I met such a guy.

This guy was going through a bit of a tough patch. His wife was very sick with a protracted illness, and with 4 kids, work and all the other obligations of life, it was taking a lot of energy and strength of character to keep the ship upright. But the guy plodded along, sucking it up, and holding it all together.

The one day, out of the blue the town manager rang to tell him that his neighbor called in a complaint that this guys dogs were barking too much and disturbing the neighbors breakfast. " Disturbing his fucking breakfast ?". He're this guy was....four kids, sick wife, tough job.... a thousand plates all spinning in the air without one smashing to the ground. And some whiney-ass dick of a neighbor didn't have the decency to either deal with a little bit of barking or have enough balls to walk over and have a little face to face. This pussy had to call the town manager !?!?

So my new found friend and compatriot did what any reasonable person would do. He started a rock garden. A place of peaceful trainquility.

He started by getting a pile of big rocks. But to keep it simple he just got himself a handful of really big rocks. They were easier to move, and it would be easy enough to just go ahead and just make small rocks out of them.

Then he got himself a nice big flat-pan shovel.

Eevery morning woke up, got himself a cup of coffee, and went out back to work on his rock garden.

BAM........BAM...........BAM........every morning as the sun would come up, he'd bring that shovel up over his head and.....BAM.....He said he got pretty good at making rocks. And he learned pretty well which of the pointy rocks made the most noise.

I asked him how long he kept that up. He replied,

" Three months and two shovels"

ahahahahhahahahahahahah....that's still funny writing it.

I asked how it ended up. He replied, "ended up ?

Apparently he eventually weened off from seven days a week down to three days a week, then stopped doing it as regularly. But every once in a while he goes out back and gives it a couple of whacks, " just to keep him on his toes".

That's my kinda guy.

And his wife is doing much better thank God

Man I love karma.