No Title Works

Carol and I were sitting on the front porch waiting for some friends to come over and do some target shooting. She was on her phone looking at Facebook. She looked up and said that one of her friends had posted that Robin Williams was dead. I don't believe much of that kind of stuff on Facebook since so many of them turn out to be untrue. I did take a minute to google it and found out it was true. It is a profoundly sad thing. I think Billy Crystal said it best when he said "No words". There are many things that come to mind but I think it is best to keep those thoughts private for now. The only thing I want to say is that depression is a powerful thing. If you are depressed please seek help. Talk to someone. Take medication if you need it. Do whatever is necessary to address the problem without resorting to a life ending decision.

The evening other than the shooting part was tough. Our nephew called and is in the Warren County Jail on a charge of residential burglary. He wanted me to come over and pay his bond. He had stayed with us earlier this year when he and his girlfriend decided coming to Illinois and looking for work was a good idea. Apparently she has left him and returned to Tennessee with her parents. He was talking to me on the phone and giving me his side of the events that led to his arrest. He stated he wanted to return to Tennessee and be a father to his twin sons. I talked to the jail folks and told them I wouldn't do anything until I talked to his parents. I did and found out he had already called them and they had refused to bail him out based on concerns that he would just leave Illinois and not show up for court. The problem he had when he talked to me was that I worked at a prison for over 20 years. I had heard the claims he made by hundreds of other men. Those men always claimed they had learned their lesson and were ready to go out and do the right thing. They, like him, seemed to be able to cry on command. They, like him, promise to do better and then go back to doing what they always do. He stayed with us a couple of weeks and really seemed to have no concern out his twins in Tennessee. He was more concerned with whatever his stripper girlfriend wanted. It seemed to me as I pondered his words that he was a typical offender. He could make his mouth say anything in order to get his ass out of the jail cell he was in. It seemed to me he would do what so many others have done and just fall back into the habits and behaviors that got him where he still sits now. If your mom and dad don't trust you enough to bail you out then your aunt and uncle are going to follow their lead. Perhaps a longer stay in the gray bar hotel than the has previously endured with be the push he needs to change the path he is on. If it doesn't work then he will be destined to spend a good deal of his adult years looking out of barred windows and wondering what could have been.

RIP Robin Williams

Good luck Brandon.