There, but for the grace of God, go I

Police: Teen Who Hit SUV With Eggs Slain
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A 14-year-old boy who was throwing eggs at cars along with two other teenagers was shot and killed by someone who had been in a sport utility vehicle that was hit, police said.

I remember as a youngster, about the same age as this young boy, my best friend and I participated in a few snowball throwing episodes that might well have ended in this type of tragedy.

One time we were up near the community pool parking lot. We saw the truck we hit do an immediate u-turn, so we took off running across a field next to the pool, but we didn't get far when the guy turned into the parking lot. We hit the dirt, or in this case---the snow, headfirst and sunk down as far as we could go. His headlights were shining across the field. The guy just yelled at us for awhile; and then left after about 10 minutes.

Another time we were on the frontage road to the main road; after a toss we'd slink back in between houses in our development. We nailed one car pretty good, and my buddy watched it continue on down the road, then noticed it take the next turn; well, he slunk back without saying anything. I didn't notice the car come back up another side road to where we were, and the guy started screaming at me. After an earful, he started to drive off, whereupon my best friend jumped out and nailed him again from behind; this time we both took off through the houses and made a getaway.

Kids do stupid things; and adults can do even more stupid things. Anger can raise the bar of stupidity to a level that is beyond the belief of rational thought. This guy is going to spend years in jail because he couldn't control his anger, a young man is dead because of a silly prank---and Satan is happy, two lives destroyed with one stroke of his brush.