Inspiration

"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."

- Voltaire

Once there was a little boy. When he was three weeks old his parents turned him over to a baby-sitter.

When he was two years old, they dressed him up like a cowboy, and gave him a gun.

When he was three, everybody said, "Ain't he cute!" as he went around lisping a beer commercial

When he was six, his father occasionally dropped him off at Sunday School on his way to the golf course.

When he was eight, his parents bought him a BB gun, and taught him to shoot birds. He learned to shoot windshields himself.

When he was ten, he spent his afternoon time squatting at the drugstore newsstand reading comic books. His mother wasn't at home, and his father was very busy.

When he was thirteen, he told his parents other boys stayed out as late as they wanted to, so they said he could too. It was much easier that way.

When he was fourteen, the police called his home very late one night.

"We have your boy here at the police station," they said. "He's in big trouble".

"In trouble?" screamed the father. "It can't be my boy!"

My little brother just asked, "Why are people so nice to the people who are about to die?"

And I told him that we want to make their last few moments on earth happy.

And he said, "Everyone dies a little everyday and sometimes we don't know when a person is gonna die, so why isn't everyone always nice, because we never know what's gonna happen to someone."

As we stood in formation at the Pensacola Naval Air Station, our Flight Instructor said, "All right! All you idiots fall out."

As the rest of the squad wandered away, I remained at attention.

The Instructor walked over until he was eye-to-eye with me, and then just raised a single eyebrow.

I smiled and said, "Sure was a lot of 'em, huh sir?"