Today I went to a funeral

And I didn't even know the young man who had died nor do I know his family. Why did I go then? To show support for somebody who lost a child - unexpectedly, much too young, violently.
Ever since I read about the hit-and-run accident in which Ramon Ramirez was injured, I have been angry, sad and upset. Story here: http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/student-declared-brain-dead-organs-to-be-donated/article_802029d2-fea0-11e0-b012-001cc4c002e0.html
As of today, the driver of the vehicle has not been found, the reward has been doubled to $2,000.
The thinking in my house is that it's either a drunk driver (in which case the car will eventually be found and so will the driver) or an illegal alien (in which case all bets are off).
I can't comment on the service itself - it was almost entirely in Spanish (which is the only reason I didn't end up crying my way through every Kleenex in my purse) and 2 years of Spanish simply aren't enough to understand much at all.
What did impress me was the number of people in attendance: easily close to a 1,000 with every bench full and plenty of people standing in back, the majority teenagers. There were lots and lots of white Tshirts (dress code was very casual, I was overdressed in mostly black) many, many of them with Ramon's senior picture on the front and either "Ramon 36" or "Monchiz 36" or "Ramon forever" on the back.
I was very touched to see this kind of support.
I hope Ramon's family will find peace in time and I very much hope there will be justice done eventually.

Good-bye old red Jeep

Another milestone - it's finally time to say good-bye to the old red Jeep. The first car I ever chose for myself - and then had to battle with L over driving it. Because it was cooler than the one he had :-)

We bought it in 1993 and just weeks later I had a near miss while driving on thick ice - back in Oklahoma. I slid through an intersection right between two cars; one was going N, the other S, I was headed W. Whew! That was scary.

This is the car that took us on vacations in New Mexico and Arizona and Utah and Colorado year after year until the kids complained. Couldn't we go somewhere else for a change? We went into Canyon de Chelly in the spring one year when the ice and snow had thawed but the water was still running deep - and promptly got water into the car, through the air vents. There probably still is a bit of reservation dirt in the carpet and floor mats.

This is the car that we drove from Oklahoma to California with two dogs in the very back and one child and lots of suitcases on the backseat. It took several days, we had to stop in certain cities because that's where we had reservations for us and the dogs at specific kennels - all very well planned in advance.

This is the car that drove kids to school, to band practice, to daycare, to karate.

This is the car that went through 3 radiators in one year, one came pre-damaged from the factory, the next one - well, who knows, mystery damage? We didn't have to pay for that one. The third one finally took and it's still in there.

After 13 years of driving it, it was time for a new car. On the mechanic's recommendation, we hung on to it and waited for Henry to get his license in the summer of 2006. He drove it for almost a year.

And this is the car that took him to the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's been sitting in the driveway since. We tried, half-heartedly, selling it a time or two. It didn't work and we obviously weren't ready.

Now it's time. Today we are donating it to Mission Solano.

It's time - finally - and it's a good thing. Still, I'll miss seeing the car in the driveway every day. And in my mind I can still hear the roar of the muffler (it has a "guy" muffler and a "guy" horn) when Henry drove off to school.

World Suicide Prevention Day

It's not until Saturday, but I sent in my annual letter to the editor early and it's in today's paper. I wasn't sure they'd print it. I had written a rather angry and fierce letter earlier this year and it was not printed. But here it is:

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/a-permanent-solution-to-a-temporary-problem/article_e2e54508-d9b5-11e0-8f56-001cc4c002e0.html

And, no, I won't be reading the comments. I just don't have a thick enough skin.

Grants for suicide prevention

http://www.newswise.com/articles/suicide-prevention-funds-awarded-to-states-and-tribes#.Tl_MQ3YL92A.facebook

This article talks about grants provided to states and tribes for youth suicide prevention. It's a good thing and I am not at all surprised that quite a lot of the funds go to Native American Tribes. Suicide is a disproportionally larger problem there than in the general population.

Accident in Jamieson Canyon

http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/monday-s-traffic-death-on-jamieson-canyon-ruled-suicide/article_0d50da84-d41e-11e0-ad69-001cc4c002e0.html

The accident referred to happened on a road I use on occasion. It's two lanes, no center divider and there have been far too many accidents. Originally, this was considered to have been caused by a blown tire on the big rig, then it was determined that the car veered over the center line. Now it's considered a suicide. How sad, especially since it involved so many other people (and I don't mean the ones inconvenienced by the traffic mess). In particular, the driver of the big rig who must be feeling horrible, it wasn't his fault. And how about all those other people whose cars were hit? Suicide is always terribly painful for the ones left behind and in this case the people affected and hurt weren't even related or known the the person who took his life.

An Increase in Suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/us/26bcjames.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

In case the title doesn't work as a link, the above link should and my title says it all. It may be the economy which means the money for constructing the barrier is needed more than ever.

Mean people suck revisited

A couple of weeks ago, 3 people who had stepped over a barrier at one of the waterfalls in Yosemite fell to their deaths. It's been in the media quite a bit, obviously.
Shortly afterward, my husband mentioned hearing it discussed on call-in radio shows. He listens to quite a lot of those on the way to and from work (long commute) and noticed that there were a lot of ugly comments of the kind left in the San Francisco Chronicle when the suicide barrier was being discussed.
What he found very interesting was the person calling in who said he had mentioned this story on his blog and, because commenters have to leave their full name, found that the comments were nowhere near as nasty as those in other places.
I think it's the same old anonymity bringing out the worst in people.
Here's the link to the article I posted back then:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1821646,00.html
Still applies, obviously.