A man who I went to school with died recently. His name was Wade. He was 50 years old. He and I were both born in 1971. He was a few months older than me. I'm not going to mention his last name because it might possibly cause his loved ones grief. This makes seven people that I went to school with who are now deceased.

Let me tell you about something that happened a few days before Christmas when I was in the second grade. Every student brought a gift to school to exchange for Christmas. The gift that Wade brought was a small, crappy football that was blue. When he showed me the gift that he brought, I hated it. As my luck would have it, when we picked names out of a bowl, I got Wade's name. I ended up with the crappy football. The gift that I brought was an AM/FM radio. As I saw one of the students enjoying that radio, I was stuck with a crappy football. But I didn't tell wade that I hated his gift.

Wade and I were good friends. As a child, he was a pretty nice felloe. But when he became an adult, he wasn't. After getting in trouble with the law, a judge put Wade on 14 months probation. The judge told Wade that if he did anything outside of the law during those 14 months, he would be going to jail for a while.

Wade was staying with his sister at this time. She forgot to give him a phone message from his old girlfriend. Just because of that, he went hog wild. He beat the living crap out of her. I was told that he beat and kicked his sister so much that she had knots on her body when he was through. Knowing that she would call the cops, Wade left her house in a hurry. She called the cops and the police located and arrested Wade several days later.

Wade grew and smoked marijuana. He started doing worse drugs and it's possible that that was what killed him. It's sad when people take drugs and die. One of my cousins died in 2019 because of drugs. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Stay away from drugs. Drugs kill. Drugs are no damn good.

I'm sorry that Wade grew up to be a violent man who got in trouble with the law. When we were kids, I had no idea that he would turn out to be a not so nice person. When we were children, he was friendly. Even though he turned out to be pretty mean, I'm sorry that he's dead. May Wade Rest in Peace.