Death

I'm 60, and think of it some when I get a reminder of how old I am. Yesterday, I was reading the paper, and was looking at the obituary column. I saw a guys picture that I went to school with from 1st grade until we walked the stage at graduation in early June of 75. He was 1 week younger than me. I hadn't seen him since we graduated, but I remembered him as one heck of a nice guy. He was always a big guy, and by big...I don't mean he was fat. He was just one of those guys who was thick and broad from his shoulders to his ankles. He wasn't anywhere close to the fastest base runner when we played ball on the playground in elementary school, but he could knock a softball into the next county. Although it made me sad to see that he had passed, it lifted my spirits to see that the 60 year old man they described in the obituary was the same nice boy I remembered as a kid. If you're remembered well, you've lived a good life. I really hope people can remember me like I did Christopher Earl Penland. R.I.P. Earl.