Feb 09 2018

But this is not the opening line of a joke. A man, a father, a close friend of our daughter and her family was shot to death at point-blank range in a bar after an argument with a stranger about the weight of a dog and the weight of the victim.

This whole tragedy is really outside of reality for me. I have come to terms with the death of friends and relatives, both the sudden ones from a failing heart to the lingering ones as a cancer lives up to its name “terminal.” I can even understand those deaths caused by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But this. This I cannot fathom.

Not some revenge by a disgruntled worker or a kid bullied at school. Rage. Instant rage. Uncontrolled rage. Deadly rage. Senseless rage. Rage that pulled the trigger multiple times in a row standing within feet of the man he shot and killed. Over what? Another thing I cannot comprehend.

As we were driving home today from a week’s vacation and had heard about this catastrophe, two times drivers were tailgating me just a few feet behind the rear of my car. My usual inclination when this happens is tap my brake pedal a couple of times to give a signal to that driver that he/she is too close. Not today. The danger of what could happen if road rage were to occur outweighed the danger of a car way too close to me as I travelled at 70 mph.

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