Killers Deserve Same Compassion They Dished Out

Current headlines cry out about compassion and how it applies to convicted murderers, as if their bouts with fatal illnesses excuse them of the heinous crimes against mankind these scumbags have been convicted of. I was livid when I learned recently that Scotland had released convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi to return home to Libya. Megrahi was released in August from a Scottish jail--where he was serving life for the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270--on compassionate grounds due to his terminal prostate cancer. Libyan leader Moamar Gadhafi gave Megrahi a hero's welcome when the only one of Gadhafi's countrymen convicted in the bombing of PanAm 103 arrived in Tripoli on August 20, 2009. Megrahi reportedly had a life expectancy of less than three months when the decision was made by Scottish officials to allow the mass murderer to go home to die. President Barack Obama voiced outrage at the Scot's decision, primarily because 190 of the 270 people killed in the December 21, 1988, airline bombing were American citizens. Megrahi was released from prison in time to return to Libya for the start of Ramadan. Well, ain't that nice? I will never possess the capacity to comprehend nor the power to agree with the kind of thinking that allows such idiotic decisions to be made. A human being, in my opinion, is no longer a viable candidate for compassion of any kind from his or her fellow humans when they are responsible for the loss of multiple lives. This way of thinking also applies to killers like Susan Atkins, who had gained considerable support from public opinion in her attempts to receive parole from prison earlier this year when she was dying from brain cancer. For those of you who have forgotten, Atkins was a participant in the murders attributed to the Manson Family in 1969 in the Los Angeles area. Among those murdered in Manson's gang's killing spree were (pictured above, at right) actress Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring of the Sebring hair products fame. Slightly tempering my vitriolic response to Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds, was the California parole board's decision to deny Atkins's request for parole on similar grounds about two weeks later. Atkins died on September 24, 2009, at the Central California Women's facility in Chowchilla. Reportedly her last whispered word was "Amen." Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley opposed Atkins's request for parole, writing in a letter to the parole board, her release "would be an affront to people of this state, the California criminal justice system and the next of kin of many murder victims. Atkins's horrific crimes alone warrant a denial of her request." Vincent Bugliosi, the district attorney who prosecuted the Manson Family killers and wrote the highly successful book "Helter Skelter" about the criminal case, said he was not opposed to Atkins being released from prison to die from her brain cancer at home. "She has paid substantially, though not completely, for her horrendous crimes. Paying completely would be imposing the death penalty." Which is exactly what Charles Manson and his followers all deserved, death, not the life sentences most of them have been serving since being convicted of multiple murders. Steve Grogan, convicted in 1971 for helping Manson, Tex Watson and Bruce Davis kill Spahn's Ranch hand Donald "Shorty" Shea, was released from prison in 1985 and remains the only Manson Family member that's been convicted of murder to be released from prison. Grogan, who is now 63, drew a map for authorities to find Shea's buried body. Also in the news currently is the big debate over capital punishment in the State of Texas, sparked by the recent release from death row of Ernest Willis, a West Texas man who spent 17 years in prison. Willis, 64, was sentenced to death for a 1986 house fire in the Pecos County town of Iraan in which two sleeping women died. Another arson-related multiple murder incident in Texas involves Cameron Todd Willingham. But while Willis has been released from death row, it is too late to save Willingham. He was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. Willingham was convicted in August 1992 of the arson murders of his three children--2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon Diane and Kameron Marie--and sentenced to pay with his life. The pitfalls of capital punishment come to the forefront in the cases of Ernest Willis and Cameron Todd Willingham. Their cases were among those to be discussed at an October 2nd meeting of the Texas Forensic Science Commission that was derailed when Texas Governor Rick Perry unexpectedly removed the commission's chairman and two other members. Perry has insisted Willingham was guilty of setting the 1991 Corsicana house fire in which his young children died. In 2004 a federal judge ruled that authorities wrongly dosed Willis with anti-psychotic drugs during his trial, leaving him a virtual zombie. The federal judge demanded that Willis be retried or set free. A Pecos County district attorney then dropped the charges against Willis, admitting that the Iraan fire appeared to have been an accident. While on death row, Willis said he never gave up hope that he would be able to avoid his date with the death chamber. "It made it a lot tougher knowing that I was innocent," Willis lamented. "If I had been guilty, I would have been ready to face the music. But I tried never to give up hope. I was always preparing myself for release." The criminal justice system in Texas is far from perfect. Carl Wayne Buntion's stroke of luck has my temperature rising. It irritates the hell out of me that Buntion will be getting a new trial because the decision that sent him to death row for murdering Houston Police Officer James Irby nearly 20 years ago was recently overturned. The state's appellate court basically said the jury in Buntion's punishment phase simply did not have all of the information when they sentenced him to death back in 1991. His murder conviction stands. Buntion is still guilty of shooting Officer Irby in the head during a minor traffic stop in 1990. It appears the jury did not get to consider Buntion's troubled childhood and mental health issues during the punishment phase. Oh, don't get me started on that one. A troubled childhood? Mental health issues? How do those issues even deserve a spot on the punishment radar? Did Carl Wayne Buntion shoot HPD Officer James Irby in the head in a 1990 traffic stop? Yes, he did. End of story. Reginald Blanton was scheduled to be administered lethal injection Tuesday night in Huntsville. If I had anything to say about it, I would have Carl Wayne Buntion wheeled in on another gurney directly behind the Blanton dude so Reggie would have some company on his midnight ride to hades. Why waste the taxpayers' money feeding human slime like Buntion while he remains on death row awaiting another punishment trial in Houston. And Blanton, there's a true paragon of virtue. He was captured on videotape in April 2000 selling two gold necklaces at a San Antonio pawn shop. It turns out those necklaces belonged to 22-year-old Carlos Garza, who had been shot to death at his apartment in the Alamo City about 20 minutes prior to Blanton waltzing into the pawn shop to sell his gold chains. Other good news for supporters of capital punishment--a necessary evil in a world where street thugs will take your life for the hundred dollar Jordans on your feet and the fistful of Washingtons in your pockets--comes in the announcement this week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the capital murder convictions and death sentences of Howard Paul Guidry and John Steven Gardner. The two Texas death row inmates, one a hit man in a murder-for-hire plot and the other a man who killed his wife, had their appeals denied. Guidry was convicted in 1997 in the shooting death of 33-year-old Farah Fratta in Harris County. Gardner was convicted in the 2005 shooting death of his wife, Tammy Dawn Gardner, in her Collin County home shortly before their divorce was to become final. If there ever was a criminal deserving of the death penalty as punishment for his crimes it was Jeffrey Dahmer. He was apprehended on July 22, 1991, by Milwaukee police and later convicted of the gruesome killings of 17 male victims in a highly publicized case of mass murder. But the state of Wisconsin does not have the death penalty, so Dahmer was sentenced to 15 life terms in prison. Did Dahmer receive a just punishment when fellow inmate Christopher Scarver beat him to death with a barbell at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin on November 28, 1994? I think so. The first of Dahmer's 17 murder victims was bludgeoned to death with a barbell. Dahmer, pictured below at left, declared himself a born again Christian while in prison. This is a conversion many inmates claim while behind bars. Does such a conversion allow these killers ascension into heaven upon their deaths? I think not. But this is where my opinions and those of many Christians part ways. Tex Watson, the most active participant in the well publicized killings of the Manson Family in 1969, wrote that he became a born-again Christian in prison and operates "Abounding Love Ministries" while remaining incarcerated. He has written about his role in the murders, the sorrow he feels for his involvement, and has made an apology to the family members of his victims on his website, stating that he believes he is "forgiven by God." Do you think God has forgiven Howard Barton Unruh for the seemingly random murders of 13 people in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949? Unruh died October 19, 2009, at the age of 88 following a lengthy illness in a Trenton, New Jersey, nursing facility. Unruh had been confined in a state psychiatric hospital since being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by psychologists and found to be hopelessly insane. The diagnosis, which prevented Unruh from being prosecuted for his September 6, 1949, killing spree, was followed by the mass murderer's statement, "I'd have killed a thousand if I had bullets enough." Unruh, a 28-year-old World War II veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge, took only 12 minutes to shoot and kill 13 of his East Camden, New Jersey, neighbors with a German Luger pistol. Among his murder victims were a 9-year-old, 6-year-old and 2-year-old. In reading earlier this week of the death of Howard Unruh and the horrendous crimes he committed long before I was born, I could only voice regrets that there was nobody like Christopher Scarver locked up with Unruh who had a set of barbells nearby.

Are redemption and rehabilitation possible inside the concrete walls of our nation's prisons? Yes, I believe they are, in isolated situations. But it is my opinion that parole and second chances should be reserved for those inmates whose crimes do not involve the taking of another human's life. And when the subject of weighing whether or not to release a convicted murderer from prison involves those who have killed multiple victims, it should be a moot point. No, never, ever, period. Compassion should never figure into the equation. Just look at the photo of Sharon Tate below. What a truly beautiful woman. She was still in her twenties, within weeks of giving birth of her first child, when she was murdered by a gang that showed zero compassion to her, her unborn baby, and the other people with her the night they were all killed in 1969. So when Susan Denise Atkins was denied parole on September 2nd of this year despite being paralyzed over 85 percent of her body, unable to sit up on her own, brain cancer slowly killing her, I believe the Californai parole board made the right decision. A difficult one, yes, but still the right decision. Read on about Atkins's crimes and perhaps you will understand why I take this stance against her parole.

Charles Manson, pictured at right below, was denied parole for the eleventh time on May 23, 2007. His next parole hearing is scheduled in 2012. Manson, now 74 years old, seemingly had the members of his "family" under his spell in 1969 when he orchestrated the mass murders of people he did not know and who had done nothing to harm him or any of the members of his blood thirsty gang of assassins. Their crimes were detailed in the book and TV movie "Helter Skelter" and all of them would have been executed, and justly so, many years ago if not for the California Supreme Court's People vs. Anderson decision that invalidated all death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. Thus vicious killers like Charles Manson, Tex Watson and Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan had their death sentences changed to life imprisonment.

On the evening of August 8, 1969, Charles Manson gathered Atkins, Linda Kasabian and Patricia Krenwinkel in front of Spahn's Ranch and told them to go with Charles "Tex" Watson and do as they were told. In Atkins' grand jury testimony, she stated that while in the car, Watson told the group they were going to a home to get money from the people who lived there and to kill them. Five people were murdered at the Beverly Hills home where movie director Roman Polanski and his actress wife, Sharon Tate, lived. Tate, a sexy blond beauty (pictured at left) who starred in the movie "Valley Of The Dolls," was eight months pregnant with Polanski's child. Murdered that night by Manson's group of killers were Tate, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger. Polanski was in Europe at the time of the killings, finishing work on a film project.

Forensic evidence indicated that the murders were extremely brutal. Just prior to leaving the Polanski-Tate residence, Atkins wrote "PIG" on the front door in Sharon Tate's blood. Watson, a Dallas native who claimed to have been high on speed the night of the killings, allegedly told Frykowski prior to killing him, "I am the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business." In testimony at his murder trial, Watson denied having made that remark but later acknowledged saying it in his autobiography.

On the night after the pregnant Sharon Tate and her house guests were all murdered, Manson called Atkins, Krenwinkel, Watson, Kasabian, Leslie Van Houten and Steve Grogan to join him for another night of carnage. Manson and Watson entered the home of grocery store owner Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in Los Feliz, a Los Angeles suburb, and tied them up at gunpoint. Manson then allegedly went outside the house and sent Krenwinkel and Van Houten inside to do as Watson told them. Manson instructed the women to leave messages in blood as they had done the night before at the Polanski mansion.

Another member of Manson's group at Spahn's Ranch implicated Atkins in the murders and she was arrested by Los Angeles police in October 1969. While in jail, Atkins confessed her participation in the Tate/LaBianca murders to two cellmates who later reported her statements to the authorities. Atkins agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, and she then testified before the grand jury as to what had transpired on the nights of August 8 and 9, 1969.

Atkins told the grand jury that she stabbed Frykowski in the legs and that she held Tate down while Watson stabbed her. She also testified that Tate had pleaded for her life and that of her unborn child, to which Atkins replied, "Woman, I have no mercy for you." Atkins later claimed her participation in the murders was passive and that she did not actually kill anyone. In his 1978 memoir, Watson declared himself solely responsible for all of Tate's injuries, characterizing Atkins' initial confessions as exaggeration, jail house bragging, and a bid for attention.

In 1977, Atkins published her autobiography, "Child of Satan, Child of God," in which she recounted the time she spent with the Manson family, her religious conversion, and her prison experiences. From 1974 onwards, Atkins stated she was a born-again Christian. Yet she was denied parole 18 times and died in prison on September 24 of this year.

Debra Tate, the sister of Sharon Tate, said her family was ripped apart by her famous sister's brutal and senseless 1969 murder. "If Susan Atkins is released to rejoin her family, where is the justice?"

Charles Denton "Tex" Watson, pictured below at right, was tried separately from the other members of Charles Manson's "Family" and was convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death on October 21, 1971. Spared execution like his other Manson Family members when his death penalty was changed to life in prison, Watson remains incarcerated today in Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California. He has been denied parole 13 times. His next scheduled parole hearing is in December, 2011. Tex Watson is now 63 years old.

Doris Tate, the mother of actress Sharon Tate, addressed Watson at his parole hearing in 1984. "What mercy, sir, did you show my daughter when she was begging for her life?" Doris Tate asked Watson when he was asking the California parole board to show him mercy and grant him parole. "What mercy did you show my daughter when she said give me two weeks to have my baby and then you can kill me? When will Sharon come up for parole? Will these seven victims and possibly more walk out of their graves if you get paroled?"

Doris Tate, who died in 1992 at the age of 68, confronted Watson again at his 1990 parole hearing. Her work as an advocate for victim's rights was taken over by her daughter, Patti, who was involved in the establishment of the Doris Tate Crime Victims Bureau, a non-profit organization with the aim of monitoring criminal legislation and raising public awareness. Patti represented the Tate family at parole hearings for Manson and the other killers until 2000, when she died from breast cancer. Her role was assumed by the middle Tate daughter, Debra, who carries on the tradition of her mother and sister by appearing at parole hearings of the Manson Family members to voice opposition to any of them ever being paroled from prison.

When television cameras focus on such celebrities as the Reverend Jesse Jackson, actor Danny Glover and Bianca Jagger, the ex-wife of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, as they speak out at The Walls prison in Huntsville, Texas, in opposition of capital punishment, TV viewers seldom see a hint of the extreme anguish, suffering and intense grief the families and friends of those murderer's victims have had to endure. The media far too often give a platform to those crying out against the death penalty to seek forgiveness for the scum of society who are undeserving of such compassion.

The Ernest Willis's of the world are by far the exception and not the rule. It is true that the execution of a single innocent man or woman is one too many. I agree that such an incident would be an unforgivable travesty. But to repeal the death penalty in the State of Texas due to the revelation that one innocent man might have been executed by mistake would be exactly that, a huge mistake.

"Most of the people on death row are guilty," Willis was quoted as saying in a recent Houston Chronicle article. "But there's a small percentage who are not. Willingham told me he was innocent. His case was almost identical to mine. I believed him."

Willingham's ex-wife does not agree with Willis's statements. "I believe he was guilty," said Stacy Kuykendall of her ex-husband. She told a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter that Willingham told her before his execution that he had set fire to the house and killed their children because he knew that she was going to leave him. "He was sorry for what he did," Kuykendall said. "But he did confess."

"He started the fire and killed the kids," said Waco lawyer David Martin, Willingham's court-appointed attorney during his murder trial. "His conduct was really incriminating, and his statements were irreconcilably inconsistent."

As Willingham's legal representative, Martin said he unsuccessfully tried to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors and believes that Willingham should have accepted a plea-bargain offer for life in prison to avoid his ultimate date in the Texas death chamber. Martin has claimed recently that he felt compelled to speak out in recent interviews, even though he has come under intense criticism from his former client's defenders for asserting that Willingham was guilty.

"When it began to be expressed that an innocent man had been executed, I took an interest in responding to that because that's just not the case," Martin said in a recent interview at his ranch near Corsicana.

The cornerstone of the state's case against Willingham was the arson investigation. An accelerant was splashed on the floor and near the threshold of the door of the home Willingham had shared with Kuykendall in 1991, arson investigators ruled.

"I was completely convinced that it was both a murder and an arson fire," said John H. Jackson, a retired judge and the former assistant district attorney who led the prosecution of Willingham. "I think the death penalty opponents really do themselves a disservice by identifying this guy as a poster child. There are a lot of good arguments against the death penalty, but this is not one of them."

"I don't know what he did," Willis says of Willingham, his fellow Texas death row inmate. But the West Texas man who spent 17 years on death row for an arson-murder he supposedly did not commit, says he is convinced the former Corsicana auto mechanic was innocent, based on his conversations with Willingham.

The recently freed death row inmate is requesting that Texas Governor Rick Perry publicly admit the Lone Star State may have erred when Texas executed Willingham for intentionally killing his three children in 1991. "I think (Perry) should step up to the plate, call for a death penalty moratorium, listen to the experts and see what kind of situation we've got," Willis said in a telephone conversation with a Houston Chronicle reporter from his Midland home.

Former Texas Governor Mark White, who was governor from 1983-87, agrees it is time the state reconsiders its use of capital punishment, basing his opinion on the risk being too great that innocent people could be put to death. White, a Democrat, said the death penalty no longer deters murder, long delays between convictions and executions show there is no swift justice, and he's increasingly concerned it isn't administered fairly.

"There's a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penalty statutes and even look at the possibility of having life without parole so we don't look up one day and determine that we, as the state of Texas, have executed someone who in fact was innocent," White said.

Twenty death row inmates were executed during the period Mark White was Texas's attorney general and governor between 1979 and 1987.

Perry, Texas's longest-serving governor, has vigorously defended his actions in connection with Willingham's 2004 execution and depicts Willingham as "a monster."

Unfortunately for all of us Texans and our fellow inhabitants of the rest of the world, far too many "monsters' lurk among us. In my little corner of the world in West Columbia, Texas, I have been appalled and shocked by the many heartless murders that have occurred in recent years in West Columbia, Brazoria, Sweeny, Old Ocean, Surfside and the Brazosport area. Life is a fragile commodity and I would definitely be opposed to any innocent life being taken, but I remain fully committed to throwing my support behind the continuation of capital punishment in my home state. I disagree with former Governor White, who I once interviewed at John Gayle's lake house near West Columbia when he was running for governor and I was the editor of The Brazoria County News. I think the death penalty remains a deterrant to murder to some degree.

And I believe in the Biblical declaration that the taking of a human life must be subjected to the ultimate punishment of giving one's own life in return. Matthew, Chapter 5, Verse 21, in the Bible I was given as a child states, "Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment."

Brian Gupton Takes Tiffanie Hatley As His Bride

Saturday, October 17, 2009, was definitely one of the highlights of this ol' boy's life. Brian Leslie Gupton, the 27-year-old son of my wife Peggy and I, got married. And what a lovely, picture-perfect occasion his wedding turned out to be. Peggy and I now have a daughter-in-law. She is the highly educated and attractive (cute as a button, my old man would say if he were alive to see his grandson's new bride) Tiffanie Hatley Gupton. Hey everybody, there is a new "T. Gup" in the family! And she's a lot easier on the eyes than me.

I have to admit I got a little misty eyed during the ceremony this past Saturday while seated on the first row in front of the antebellum mansion at West Columbia's Varner-Hogg State Park. With my wife Peggy on one side of me and my sister-in-law Andrea and my brother Cody on the other, I was engrossed in the moment. Seated with my wife of 29-plus years beside me, and so many family members and friends scattered out around me among the more than 200 people who attended the ceremony, the event was simply one of those reasons every man and woman can be thankful that they lived long enough to witness it. I think very highly of my son's choice for a wife. She is a graduate of The University of Houston and Katy Taylor High School who currently works for the UofH sports information department. She is witty and charming, to go along with being a real knockout in the looks department. Good choice, Briano!

My wife and I and our other sons welcome Tiffanie into the family circle. Her parents, Joe and Tina Hatley, and younger sister Nicole are all welcome new in-laws that we look forward to spending several decades getting together with at family gatherings . . . and hopefully, one day in the not too distant future, sharing our grandchildren with. We're not rushing you, Brian and Tiff, but I'm just saying! I think the tumor has shifted, so don't wait forever, okay?

If you attended the wedding then we were thankful you made the effort and hopeful that each of you were entertained. We dined at El Toro Mexican Restaurant in Clute Friday night for the rehearsal dinner, and Brian's buddy Chris Maynard provided the wedding meal through the Lake Jackson restaurant that he is the manager of, Johnny Carino's Italian Restaurant. Many thanks to those who provided and served the food and drinks, and a very special thank you is extended from Joe and Tina, as well as Peggy and myself, to everyone who chipped in and helped us out with the planning, preparation, setup and the take-down and cleanup the following day. And if you missed it, we regret that you were unable to attend our son's wedding this past Saturday. The marriage ceremony itself went off without a hitch. It was a beautiful ceremony, and the reception and dance that followed at the West Columbia Civic Center and American Legion Hall Pavilion was just as memorable. Especially for a proud old papa like me.

Sarah Sedlacek read from the Book of Colossians (3:12-17) and Sunshine Farris sang a beautiful solo, "Better Hands Now," prior to Rev. Joshua Farris marrying my son and his gorgeous new bride. Once the "I Do's" were exchanged (which included Brian saying, "For poorer and poorer," instead of "For richer and poorer" as Josh had instructed him to say) and Brian and Tiffanie were introduced to the large gathering of guests and the rest of the wedding party as the new Mr. and Mrs. Brian Leslie Gupton, the newlyweds and their party exited to the sounds of The Black Eyed Peas' song, "I Gotta Feeling."

Serving as her sister's maid of honor was Nicole Hatley of Katy. The co-best men were the groom's two younger brothers, Bret and Blake Gupton of West Columbia.

The bridesmaids were Sarah Sedlacek, Jessica Bammel, Natalie Kuban (the groom's cousin), Jamie Zarda, Brandi Clark, Beth Autenrieth, Jill Hartman and Wendy Thoe.

The groomsmen were Bryn Caulkins, Dustin Mosteit (the groom's cousin), Chris Maynard, Josh Autenrieth, Matt Autenrieth, Desmond Early and Chad Thoe.

Ushers in Tiffanie and Brian's wedding were Brandon Kuehler, Courtney Johnson and the groom's cousins, Tommy Kuban and Rex Layne Gupton.

Tori Salyer and Gabi McClure helped with the wedding by signing in the guests. Among the honored guests were Katie Hatley Ward, the bride's grandmother.

The beautiful bride (and newest member of the Gupton family) is escorted by her father, Joe Hatley, to her waiting groom, Brian Gupton, at Saturday's wedding ceremony at Varner-Hogg State Park in West Columbia, Texas. Tiffanie and Joe made their grand entrance to the Jason Mraz tune, "I'm Yours."

That's me, the proud papa, trailing behind as my son Brian escorts the two moms to their seats prior to the beginning of his Saturday wedding to Tiffanie Hatley in front of the Varner-Hogg mansion in West Columbia. Brian's mother Peggy Gupton is pictured on the left and his new mother-in-law Tina Hatley is on the right.

His two younger brothers, Bret and Blake, served as best men at the October 17th wedding of my son Brian Gupton. Joshua Farris, a good friend of Brian and Tiffanie, is pictured conducting the nuptials and patiently waiting for the Gupton brothers to come up with the wedding ring while laughing at the scripted confusion. It was more like the Marx Brothers in action.

The 60th Anniversary Of My Parents' Wedding

is today, October 9, 2009. Rex Gupton took the hand of Verna Mae Giesler in marriage on October 9, 1949, in the home of Charley and Neva Ellis in West Columbia, Texas. My dad's older brother, Judge Thurman Morris Gupton, performed the wedding ceremony in the Ellis's home, which is located a mere block away from where my grandparents' house stood in 1949. I sure wish mom and dad were here today to celebrate their 60th anniversary. Cancer claimed my wonderful mother at the age of 70 in 1996, so their 46th anniversary was the last these two true characters were allowed to spend together. Alzheimer's disease and heart failure were the culprits that eventually closed the book on my father's life in 2001. Ol' Rex died just four months shy of his 80th birthday. The photo above is how I would want to always remember my parents, having a great time with good friends and family members. The top picture was taken in Bandera, Texas, long before I was born. My parents loved to dance and both were "light on their feet" when a little sawdust could be spread on a wooden dance floor. Both my mother and father often told me how much they loved to spend time in Bandera when they were in the early years of their marriage. My mom is on the right and my dad on the left in the Bandera photo above. Their best friends, Louis and Maxine Wilson, are seated at the table with them, throwing back a few beers at a dance hall in the early 1950s. The lower photo was taken of my parents in the mid-fifties when they took a cross-country trip to Tennessee with my father's younger brother Hank and his wife Terry and their son "Little Hank" to visit Terry's family in Jackson, Tennessee. And the photo at top left is one of my favorites of the two people I loved the most as a child, my mother and father. I took that photo in front of the feed store in West Columbia that my parents ran for 26 years. They were both very proud of the plants and vegetables they sold at Gupton Feed and Ranch Supply, so I encouraged them to pose for my camera one sunny day when I captured them on film for posterity. Photos such as these displayed on my blog today are all we have left of Rex and Verna Gupton, so many years now after their deaths. The memories of them each of their offspring cherishes, that each grandchild, every niece and nephew and dear friend clings to in the present day, will always remain strong. So today, on the 60th anniversary of their marriage in 1949, our parents are toasted by their children and grandchildren. "Happy Anniversary" Rex and Verna, from your sons Cody and Tracy, your daughter Kelli, and from all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who today carry on your great name and family tradition.

Talk about "planned parenthood," my siblings and I were all born three years apart. My older brother Samuel Cody Gupton was born October 30, 1953, I came along in January 1957, and our baby sister, Kelli Renee Gupton, joined the family on March 22, 1960. The three of us had the greatest parents, each of us continues today trying to make our parents proud, and hoping to pass along as many of their favorable traits as we can to our own children. The photo of my daddy eating watermelon was taken on a Father's Day in Baytown, Texas, at my Uncle Hank and Aunt Terry's house. And the other picture of my mom and dad was taken in the backyard of Daddy's older brother, Judge Thurman Gupton and his wife Gladys in West Columbia on the day of my cousin Angie's wedding to Jack Middleton.

Rex and Verna Gupton, who would have been married 60 years today, were photographed by their middle child, Tracy Gupton (me), in the photos above. I have loved taking pictures since I was a teenager growing up in West Columbia, and my mother and father were always willing models for their shutterbug son.

An Easter Sunday family photo was taken of the Gupton clan around 1991 in front of my parents' house in West Columbia. My wife and I and our sons now reside in the same home that I grew up in as a child on Gupton Lane. Standing in back, from left to right, are my father Rex, sister-in-law Andrea, my mother Verna, and my wife Peggy. Representing the younger generation of Guptons are, in front, from left to right, Blake Gupton, Dustin Mosteit, Rex Layne Gupton, Haylie Mosteit, Bret Gupton and Brian Gupton. And our family dog, Pearl Mae "Pupper" Bodine, couldn't be left out of the family portrait.

The two photos above were taken on my birthday when my family gathered at my parents' house in West Columbia to celebrate either my 34th or 35th birthday. There is no date on the back of the picture but my youngest son Blake appears to be about three years old, so if this was taken in 1991 then I would be turning 34. That's me, the birthday boy, on the right with my mother and father and, like Fred McMurray, "My Three Sons." Brian is standing behind me, Bret is in his grandmother's lap, and Blake is sitting on his "Paw" Rex's knee. Seated together on their living room couch, some 41 to 42 years after their 1949 wedding, are my parents, Rex and Verna Gupton.

Live Out The String Is Best We Can Do

On September 10th Gertrude Noone died at the ripe old age of 110. On the following day Gertrude Baines, touted as America's oldest living person, passed away at 115 years old. On September 4th former Austrian politician Franz Olah died at 99. Famous Greek athlete Christos Vartzakis died at 98 on September 7th, and American herpetologist Henry Sheldon Fitch was 99 when he died on September 8th. On July 24th, in the midst of a scorching hot summer day, I stood at the graveside of Connor Wyatt Thoe and listened to Reverend Greg Smith deliver the last rites for a one-month old baby while sweat trickled down my back and legs. The tears that dripped from my eyes blended with the sweat on my face. Connor was born June 16th, far too premature to have much of a chance at survival, but his struggle for life for the little more than a month he lived was inspiring. He was the first child of Corey and Lynsie Thoe, two people I have known since they were children themselves and who I think very highly of. My opinions of them only improved immensely after seeing how the young married couple dealt with their son's situation and eventual death. Standing next to my own son Brian Gupton and his fiance Tiffanie Hatley at the gravesite this past July, I happened to look down at a small headstone for a "Baby Boy Bryan" whose dates of birth and death resulted in him having survived only one day. This unnamed child was born on January 23, 1918, to L.Z. and Clara Bryan and died the following day. L.Z. Bryan, the longtime head football coach at Brazoswood High School who coached the Buccaneers to their only state championship, was more than likely this unfortunate little baby's brother. L.Z. Bryan, the very successful football coach, passed away this summer as an octogenarian. My father, who was born in 1921 in his parents' West Columbia home, told me when I was growing up that he had a brother that died after living only a few days. This Gupton baby boy was born sometime between my father's 1921 birth and my Aunt Ruby's 1914 birth. Just like the child of L.Z. and Clara Bryan that died in 1918, the son of S.M. and Eula Gupton that died several days after his birth was never given a name. My parents told me when I was a kid that there were not many doctors and even fewer hospitals in the West Columbia area when they were born, so infant deaths were not uncommon in that era. But losing a baby in today's world, what with the advancements in medical technology and the abundance of hospitals in the Houston region, is almost unheard of. I guess Connor would not have survived as long as he did without having the best treatment modern medicine can offer. But that is little comfort to his parents and many other family members who grieved so hard over his death along with me and my son and future daughter-in-law this past summer. My wife and I have said to each other many, many times over the years that we can handle almost anything life throws at us, but the one thing each of us agrees we could not survive would be the death of one of our children. We were blessed with three healthy baby boys and adopted another one. We consider ourselves extremely lucky, especially after having so many close friends be forced to come to grips with the reality of what Peggy and I deem the worst possible thing that could happen to us. My brother Cody and I first had to cope with the death of a playmate when each of us was very young. Our family still lived in Markham, south of Bay City, Texas, when Jimmy Wendt died when he was a young child. I don't remember much about him now, because that was so long ago, but I do recall that Jimmy always had trouble breathing and was a wan, sickly little boy. He died about the same time my father's father passed away from emphysema in the early 1960s. I was only four years old when I lost my grandfather. My mother told me after I was grown that I used to write letters to Jimmy Wendt and Bussie (the name my brother and I called our grandfather, whose nickname was Buff but Cody mispronounced it and I simply copied my big brother) when I was first learning to write. She said I would place the little letters on the dinner table at night for the angels to pick up and carry to Heaven, sort of the ultimate air mail. My mother would gather the letters and hide them somewhere, telling me that the angels took my letters to Jimmy and Bussie. The next time a baby's death came into my sentience in my childhood days was when President Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline lost their baby son Patrick shortly after he was born. News of the infant's death was aired on our family's black-and-white TV in August, 1963, and I can just imagine how I bombarded my mother and father with questions about why did the President's baby boy have to die. I still ask that question today, as it pertains to babies, children and teenagers. An acceptable answer has yet to surface. I knew since my childhood that Elvis Presley, who shared the same birthday as me (I was born on January 8, 1957, the same day Elvis was celebrating his 22nd birthday), had a twin brother that died at birth. But it was only recently, when news of Michael Jackson's death this past summer was all over the airwaves, did I learn that Michael's older brother Marlon Jackson was also born a twin. Marlon, who is the same age I am, survived but his twin brother did not. I used to work with a man named Gary Smith who told me about his baby son dying a few days after he was born. Gary, who raised two daughters with his wife Sandy, said they brought their baby son home from the hospital and he took home movies of the two of them playing with their newborn son. According to Gary, after the child died the Smiths put the film of their baby boy away and never watched it again. My former coworker told me that nearly 30 years had passed since his son's death and he and Sandy still could not look at the movies they had taken of him. When I was a kid growing up in West Columbia there were two tragic events that occurred in town involving the deaths of small children. I went to Sunday School at the Methodist church in West Columbia and our preacher during my childhood years was Reverend Neff. He and his wife had twin sons that were a couple years older than me, and two older sons who were in high school when I was in elementary school. They also had another son who was several years younger than me. I can still remember the shock waves that traveled across town with the news that the youngest Neff boy, who hadn't even started school yet, was found hanging by a rope from a tree limb in the backyard of the Methodist parsonage next door to the church. The horrible sadness that accompanied the news of the Neff boy's accidental hanging was equaled in the same time frame (actual years and dates for these occurrences escape me) of my younger years when the Kirksey's youngest son was run over on the highway by an 18-wheeler one tragic morning. Steve and Mark Kirksey were both quite a bit older than me, but their baby brother J.J. was, like the Neff boy that died, several years younger than me. The story, as I recall it from my childhood, was that the Kirksey boys had a dog that followed Mark and Steve out to the highway outside of West Columbia when the older Kirksey boys went to catch the school bus to town. Their little brother J.J. went into the road to retrieve his family's dog after the older boys had left on the bus. The driver of the 18-wheeler came flying around a curve and was unable to avoid hitting the little Kirksey boy and killed him. Thinking that life was going to be a bed of rose petals and that I could somehow be insulated from all of the tragedy and horror (as Marlon Brando dubbed it in "Apocalypse Now") that was lying ahead waiting for me was very naive, I must admit, but I did go through most of the early years of my life feeling like I was somehow immune to it all. Little boys were dying around me left and right, but I never thought any harm would come to me. Having my brother's friend Phil Baker killed in a horrible pasture mowing accident when he was about 15 and losing my cousin Danny Louis Broadway at the age of 26 from post-Vietnam mental trauma shook me out of that unreal state of mind. Welcome to reality, young man! Life is not easy; it never was and never will be. Like the old T-shirts used to say: "Life is a bitch, then you die!" The deaths of West Columbia children John Garrett Conaway at the age of six in 1987 to cancer, Rob Tosch at a young age while playing with the Miska boys, Lorie Tolbert's young son from lifelong health issues who died when he was about three, and John Andrew Duque (left) at the age of 16 in a 1996 car wreck really hit home with me, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. The culmination of all of these young people's deaths was just too much for me to take. I shook my clinched fists at the sky and asked God how could He allow these horrible things to happen? Why didn't He intervene? There was no reply from the sky. But I think I have received an answer. In a roundabout way. The other day I was conversing in my driveway with my son Bret's girlfriend Kristen Raasch about my plans to write this story. I told her how the combined effect of trying to absorb the tragic demise of so many young people in our community over the years had eroded my spiritual faith in the Lord above. My statement to Kristen that Connor Thoe's recent death after a one month struggle to survive had been the topper, leaving me somewhat empty in my spiritual tank. Her reply was that she was deeply spiritual and always had been. She lost an aunt to cancer at an early age. Her mother's brother Greg Kresta was left with small children to raise following the death of his wife and Kristen witnessed this struggle within her own family structure firsthand. Instead of reducing her faith in her Lord, the death of her aunt only made her faith that much stronger. I found this driveway conversation with a 23-year-old uplifting and put me in "rethink mode" about how I view this dilemma of having lost so many children to premature deaths in my own little world, from my childhood right up to the present. What really strengthens my faith in God in the aftermath of all of these deaths of beautiful young people has nothing to do with me at all, really. It is what I have seen with my own two eyes when it comes to how the parents and siblings of those children whose lives were snuffed out like so many candles blowing in the wind rebound and pull themselves up by their bootstraps in order to carry on with what is left of their lives. That is what I have found the most inspiring. Johnny and Suzanne Duque inspire me. Rich and Cookie Tillman inspire me. Debbie and Jimmy Harris inspire me. Gene and Linda Hightower definitely inspire me. And the list goes on, and on. I thank all of these fellow West Columbians for the living, walking, breathing models each of them has provided people such as myself who are in search of good Christian role models.

A few nights ago my wife Peggy and I were dining at one of the local restaurants in West Columbia when our good friends Rich and Cookie Tillman came in. Peggy and Cookie embraced and shared pleasantries while I talked with Rich a little bit. The truth is I find it very difficult to converse with the Tillmans as I did years ago, simply because I am well aware of what an intense and drawnout tragic ordeal they had to live with for so long while their daughter Jeannie was battling brain cancer. We sat with the Tillmans at Kyle Field in College Station a few years ago, watching our sons participate in Aggie Corps of Cadets' marching routines. My son Bret was a junior at Texas A&M when Jimmy Tillman was a freshman. Jeannie was sitting with her parents that day in College Station, wearing a large hat to conceal her hair loss from chemo treatments she had been subjected to because of her cancer. I wore an Aggie cap to conceal the baldness that is a result of genetics and Father Time. Jeannie was an honor graduate from Columbia High School, Class of 2004, having finished fifth in her class. She attempted to attend college while struggling to beat the brain cancer that was an unwanted visitor into her busy life. She is pictured above and her graduation photo is below. It was so very difficult to watch Jeannie battle her disease. Why do these things have to happen to the very best of our society, to the most gifted and intelligent young people? Questions I ask now had to have been posed millions of times in the past by the parents of such children, who no doubt asked time and time and time again . . . why me? Those questions can not be answered.

Terminal cancer does not discriminate. It strikes humans of all ages and races. Next to car wrecks, which take loved ones from us with such quick and heartless abandon, a diagnosis of terminal cancer is the ultimate reality check. Far too many people I have known and cared deeply about in my five decades of living have received that death notice in the form of a doctor's bedside chat. Quoting Tim McGraw from one of his most popular hit songs: "I spent most of the next days, looking at the X-rays . . . talking about sweet time." It is that "sweet time" that whooshes by much too rapidly for, not only the cancer victim, but for those of us who love them and must come to the realization that we will have to go on with our lives without them. I will never forget the day my wife and sons Bret and Blake were eating lunch at the Chili's restaurant in Angleton when our waitress, Erika Wilbanks, informed us that her sister Ashleigh and her boyfriend Slade Edling had gotten engaged. With the next breath Erika was slamming the door on that good news with a sour dose of truly tragic news. Less than a couple weeks after getting engaged, Slade found out that he had brain cancer. Ashleigh and my son Bret are the same age and went to school together from daycare through their senior year in high school. The same goes for Erika and my youngest son Blake. They are also the same age. Slade Edling, the son of Thomas and Rita Edling of West Columbia, was a year or two older than my oldest son Brian. He played Little League with Brian and was on the Columbia Roughnecks baseball team when our good friend Corey Thoe was playing. We all kicked the prayers into higher gear for Slade and kept him in our thoughts throughout his lengthy battle with the malignant brain tumor that would eventually kill him before he was 30. The last time I saw Slade was at a fundraiser at The Armadillo Ballroom near Brazoria his family and friends had put on to help raise money for Slade's ever-rising hospital bills. He was confined to a wheelchair at that time. But his fiance, Ashleigh Wilbanks, was there at his side throughout the battle. Slade and Ashleigh are pictured below. Charles Wilbanks, a close friend of mine since the two of us were in the first and second grade together, have worked together at a local refinery for the past 20 years. His children and mine have grown up together and we are all practically like family. So it was extra painful to hear Charles tell me at work this past week about what a rough time his daughter Ashleigh had getting through the day on September 19th. Charles said that was the day Slade and Ashleigh were supposed to get married. The engagement ring is still worn on Ashleigh's finger, but because of his fatal bout with brain cancer, Slade will be to Ashleigh for the rest of her life what John D. Eddleman has been to my sister Kelli. They can merely think about what might have been, cling to their faith and move on with their young lives.

My high school classmate and longtime good friend Vernon Ray Mack and his wife Jessie also lost a son to brain cancer. Justin Mack was only 12 years old and a sixth grader at Brazoria Intermediate School when brain cancer claimed his life. Justin is survived by his twin sister Janine and older sister Kirby. I attended the funeral for Justin Mack and have to rank it as one of the most difficult and heartbreaking I have ever sat through. My cousin Gary Broadway's daughter Courtney was a classmate of Justin's and Janine's. Courtney had wanted to read a poem she had written for Justin at his funeral but when the time came her emotions got the better of her and Courtney struggled to stem the flow of tears and finish the poem. I found myself wiping away my own tears that flowed unchecked while I watched the black preacher who was standing near my young cousin place his arm around her and give her someone to cling to as she finished reading her poem in honor of her deceased friend. And when my buddy Vernon took the microphone at the close of his son's funeral, I was deeply moved to hear him thank everyone who had meant so much to Justin in his son's time of need.

Another pair of good friends, Debbie and Jimmy Harris, have also lost a son to brain cancer. Kent Harris fought the same gallant struggle to survive in the face of difficult odds when he, like Justin Mack and Slade Edling, died much too young. I coached Kent's younger brother Josh Harris in Little League baseball when he and my son Bret were eight and nine years old. And Debbie Harris is someone I have looked up to and thought very highly of since I was a kid and she (Debbie Gilbert back in those days) and my cousin Denise Gupton were best friends. My heart breaks to think of what the parents and siblings and other family members of Kent Harris, Justin Mack, Jeannie Tillman and Slade Edling went through while these young men endured the ravages of cancer. Knowing they are all able to continue with their respective lives encourages me to put my trivial personal issues behind me and carry on with my own life, for anyone who has had to deal with the loss of a child has already survived my worst fear. I just don't know if I could do the same if that similar tragedy occurred in the lives of my wife and I.

One of the most touching events I have ever witnessed was when Janine Aubrey Mack graduated from Columbia High School a couple years ago. I was seated with my wife not too far away from where Vernon and Jessie Mack were sitting. Vernon, who was one of my best friends when we were in high school together, released a handful of balloons into the night sky at Griggs Field when his daughter's name was announced and he watched her receive her diploma. That night an empty chair was placed near the front of the assembly of graduates in honor of Janine's twin brother Justin. Without even realizing it at the time, I had tears streaming down my cheeks as I witnessed Vernon Mack acknowledging his lost little boy at the same time he and his wife celebrated the accomplishment of their daughter. It was extremely touching.

The morning I learned of John Duque's death at the age of 16 in a head-on collision near Brazoria the previous day is one of those moments in time that seem forever frozen in my brain. People often say they will always remember where they were and what they were doing at the exact moment they learned of the assassination of President Kennedy and the death of popular entertainment icons like Elvis Presley and John Lennon. That applies to me as well, but I also have burned into my memory bank what I was doing and the entire setting around me when I lost important people in my own little world. John Duque, pictured at right in the last yearbook photo he would take, was one of those people. His mother and father, Suzanne and Johnny Duque, have been for a very long time, in my personal opinion, templates of what really good people should be like. There are others in my viewpoint who also fit this description, but when I think of the title of that book that was on the best seller's list a couple decades ago, "When Bad Things Happen To Good People," I think of the Duques.

And Rich and Cookie Tillman. And Carroll Conaway and his ex-wife. Vernon and Jessie Mack. Thomas and Rita Edling. Jimmy and Debbie Harris. Bobby Tosch and his wife. Gary and Sandy Smith. Lorie Tolbert and her husband. All very good people. And all people I know who have lost children, kids who never got the chance to grow up and become adults. Lives interrupted long before they should have. Why? If any of us knew the answer to that question . . .

Marc Cohn, one of my favorite singers and songwriters whose biggest hit was "Walking In Memphis," survived being shot in the head in a bizarre carjacking incident in Denver, Colorado, several years ago. Cohn and his band had just finished a concert in the Mile High City and were exiting the venue where they had played their set when a man ran up to their van and demanded that the driver stop. Instead the driver hit the gas in an effort to avoid the robbery attempt and the gunman fired his pistol into the van. The bullet grazed the skull of Marc Cohn, who was sitting in the backseat of the van. The Grammy winning singer was rushed to a Denver hospital where he was treated and released. This death escaping incident motivated Cohn to write a song entitled "Live Out The String," which was included on his most recent CD, "Join The Parade," which was released in 2007.

Lyrics of "Live Out The String" come about as close to defining my personal beliefs pertaining to the deaths of children, not only babies, kids and teenagers, but the deaths of everyone of any age. It's all really a crap shoot, a mere roll of the dice. It's the cards each of us were dealt. Call it fate, call it destiny, refer to it however you like. But in the end, none of us can ever avoid getting the call to meet our maker when it is our time.

"It's only natural, maybe superstitious to try and find, the meaning in beating the odds, 'cause sometimes you gotta (get down on your knees), and thank the whole wide universe of gods for letting you live out the string, a little longer boy. Raise your voice and make a joyful noise. Ain't no guarantee of anything. Live out the string. Now that a meteorite has fallen in the chair you just got out of to answer the phone, will you live every moment like it just might be your last, or will you still just bitch and moan?" So go some of the lyrics to Marc Cohn's song "Live Out The String."

Half of those pictured below are no longer with us. My mother, Verna Giesler Gupton, and her older sister, Yvonne Giesler Broadway, were both victims of cancer. They each lived long, full lives, although none of us who loved them were ready to let them go when they passed away, but the death of John Duane Eddleman when he was hardly out of his teen years was a crushing blow to all who loved him. John D. is pictured standing alongside my older brother, Cody Gupton, and our Aunt Yvonne, and my mother Verna holds Brandy Gloor while seated beside Brandy's father and John D.'s brother-in-law, John "Stormy" Gloor. And Jeannie Tillman is pictured above playing the flute during her high school days in West Columbia. John D. and Jeannie were about the same age when both were taken from us much too soon.

My wife Peggy and I both graduated from high school in West Columbia in 1975. I would bet good money that our graduating class lost more classmates in automobile accidents during our four years in high school than any other in school history. That is a record we would much rather concede to another graduating class if we could somehow reclaim all of those lost young lives. Today we can take walks down memory lane by thumbing through the pages of our high school yearbooks and pointing out all of those friends who did not have the luxury of living long enough to take the walk in cap and gown on graduation night with us. It definitely affected my psyche during my teenaged years when I--like all of my classmates at Columbia High School--got to the point where I found myself asking, "Who will be next?" And, of course, hoping that it would not be me. Car wrecks took the lives of several beautiful young girls I had an eye for in my high school days. The senselessness of it all, combined with the surreal atmosphere we grew up in, created by our being so young and thrust into a new awareness of the ugliness life presented during the era of the Vietnam War and only a few years removed from the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr., seemed to constantly kick us while we were down. Memories of my high school days are now sharply focused on simply wanting to click my heels like Judy Garland and be somewhere, anywhere else but where I was. Sadness was a constant state of mind because of the deaths of so many classmates.

But I did not take any of these tragic deaths of high school friends nearly as hard as I did the loss of my college roommate when I was attending Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. My first semester at Sam Houston I shared a two bedroom apartment with my cousin Billy Jenn, Isidro Valdez and John D. Eddleman. Isidro and I shared a bedroom while Billy and John D. shared the other. John D., who was engaged to my sister Kelli at the time, was a member of the Sam Houston Rodeo Team. On the night of December 1, 1978, he competed in the bull riding at a rodeo in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Later that night, after the rodeo, John D. was killed when the pickup truck he was a passenger in rolled over several times. My college roommate was ejected from the truck and killed when the pickup rolled over his body.

John D., as everybody called him, was like family to me. He was the younger brother of Sherry Gloor. She and her husband, John "Stormy" Gloor, remain very close to my immediate family today, as do their two daughters, Brandy and Mandy. So the death of John D. Eddleman near the end of our fall 1978 semester at Sam Houston State was truly life altering. For my sister Kelli more than for me, but his passing at 19 or 20 years of age remains among the saddest ordeals I have ever had to endure.

My younger sister Kelli is pictured above on her graduation night in 1978 with our grandmother, Pauline Giesler, and John Duane Eddleman, Kelli's boyfriend at the time. A tragic automobile accident would claim John D.'s life on December 1, 1978. He was a sophomore at Sam Houston State University and my college roommate at the time of his death. Jamie Dungy, pictured below looking at his mother Lauren prior to his and younger brother Eric's baptism, was a freshman in college when he took his own life two weeks prior to his nineteenth birthday.

In his 2007 autobiography "Quiet Strength," Tony Dungy addressed the December 22, 2004, suicide of his eldest son James. Unfortunately, Tony and Lauren Dungy received that late night phone call that my wife Peggy and I have always dreaded and feared to receive. A call telling us that one of our children has died. "For reasons that will never be fully known, Jamie had taken his own life," Tony Dungy writes in his book. "Lauren and I weren't sure how we'd get through this, but we recognized that we were going to have to cling to God's strength and love if we were going to have a chance."

Our good friends Gene and Linda Hightower of West Columbia have been in this situation and walked the same path of extreme grief that Tony and Lauren Dungy walked during the Christmas holidays five years ago. The Hightowers' son also took his own life. I shared their grief and pray that my wife and I never have to experience the throes of such extreme sorrow that the Dungys and Hightowers went through. It takes a special man or woman to find the inner strength within them in order to survive having to bury your own child. Those with a strong faith predicated on their sincere beliefs that Heaven exists and one day all of them, mother, father, brothers and sisters, will all be reunited for the Hereafter with their lost child and sibling, seem to have a better chance of dealing with the tragedy.

Tony Dungy was told by a chaplain of an NFL team he had once been associated with following his son Jamie's suicide, "Life will never be the same again, but you won't always feel like you do right now." James Dungy ended his own life just two weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday, during his freshman year in college. His father writes in "Quiet Strength" that those words were uttered to him by Tom Lamphere, the chaplain for the Minnesota Vikings at that time, as the two men stood at James Dungy's open casket. "That is when it really started to sink in and become real," Dungy wrote. "I'm never going to see him again."

Today I often see Johnny and Suzanne Duque, Rich and Cookie Tillman, Corey and Lynsie Thoe, Vernon and Jessie Mack, and others who are friends of mine. Tony Dungy retired as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts at the end of last season. He is now highly visible on television as one of NBC's studio talking heads on Sunday Night Football. All of these people who have moved on with their lives are strong Christian human beings. Each of them has that common thread that binds them together. They have all lost a child at an early age. My heart breaks for each of them. Those who live in and around my hometown of West Columbia, I see often and never fail to wave and say hello. But for the most part, conversations about their lost children are nonexistent. I can imagine what it must be like to have experienced what they did. So I feel like none of them need constant reminders, even if my intent is only to express that I love them and want them to know that I think about them often. It is just too difficult to talk about. That is a given.

Tony Dungy said in his book that he spoke to the large crowd that had assembled in Tampa, Florida, for his son Jamie's funeral five years ago. Among the things he said at the funeral was this, which I think every parent should take to heart: "Parents, hug your kids--every chance you get. Tell them that you love them every chance you get. You don't know when it's going to be the last time."

Former Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, left, is pictured with his two sons, Eric, center, and James, in a photo taken in 2004 on Thanksgiving Day. The Dungy family can relate to others who have lost a child at an early age. James Dungy committed suicide less than a month after this photo was taken.

Who Is That Distinguished Gentleman . . .

in the sharp tuxedo? Why, it's me, of course. I have gone twice in the last couple weeks to get fitted for the tuxedos I will be wearing at two of my sons' weddings in the coming months. Hey buddy, can you spare a dime? How about a couple grand to help me pay for all of this? My son Brian Gupton will be taking Tiffanie Hatley of Katy, Texas, as his bride on October 17th in a wedding ceremony planned to take place in the gorgeous setting of the front lawn of the Varner-Hogg mansion in West Columbia. And on November 14th my son Kirk Gupton will marry his longtime girlfriend Tanya Spears at the Knights of Columbus Hall near Brazoria. I have been asked to be the best man in Kirk's wedding. This will mark the fourth time I have stood up for a good friend or relative as the best man. In November of 2008 I was the best man for Jamie Tims, Kirk's brother who my wife Peggy and I practically raised when he was a child. About 25 years had passed in between weddings where I was a best man for someone who meant a great deal to me. Two of my best friends from my childhood days asked me to stand beside them when they were married (not to each other, of course, but to their respective brides) many, many years ago. My cousin Steve Weems was the first to ask me to serve as his best man, when he married his first wife Janet Sanders. Steve was the best man in my wedding in 1980 to Peggy Hall (pictured seemingly in shock--she is so ticklish--when I grabbed her leg to remove the garter after our wedding) and Harold Tolbert stood up with me as one of my groomsmen. Following my wedding Harold would ask me to be his best man over a quarter-century ago when he took Rhonda Bonner as his bride. Prior to and during the many years since those weddings, I have been lucky to have had numerous friends and relatives ask me to participate in their weddings. I have always considered it a great honor to stand up for all of these loved ones, regardless of what capacity I was asked to serve. I was the candle lighter for my cousins Randy Broadway (when he married Sandra Woodall at Bethel Presbyterian Church in East Columbia) and Mary Weems (when she married Clay Hill at Columbia United Methodist Church in West Columbia) in the 1960s when I was still a child. Those two weddings from my childhood served as the springboard to better things to come, but did not result in my wearing a rented tuxedo. I just put on my church clothes for both of those weddings. Since then I have been a groomsman, usher and both photographer and videographer at many weddings. Here, for both your viewing pleasure and to embarrass the hell out of me and my many friends and relatives pictured with me, are a variety of old photographs of yours truly wearing tuxedos in several weddings. And . . . coming soon to a theater near you . . . make that my blogsite instead of a theater near you . . . will be more photos of the ancient Gupster wearing rented tuxes and suits for the weddings of two of my sons in October and November of 2009. I can't wait!

A few pictures from my June 28, 1980, wedding to my bride Peggy Hall Gupton show me in all my splendor, trying very hard to look like Barry Gibb of The BeeGees (check out the beard and long hair), are displayed above and below. The photos above show me tossing the garter that I removed from Peggy's leg in one picture to a group of bachelors gathered behind me in the other. The garter was caught by Isidro Valdez Jr., pictured trying the hardest to get a grasp on the garter in flight. In the photo below I am shown with all of the guys who stood up for me at my wedding over 29 years ago. Aren't we a handsome group? Pictured from left to right are: my brother Cody Gupton, Bill Lott, Harold Tolbert, my best man and cousin Steve Weems, the groom, Dean Sitton, my cousin Hank Gupton, and Isidro Valdez Jr. The two photos below that are a good indication of how the ravages of time can really kick a man's ass! I am pictured in my twenties, escorting a bridesmaid down the aisle in the wedding of my cousin Lynn Broadway, and as the best man for Jamie Tims in his wedding last year. I don't know about you guys, but I much prefer the 80s look: "You should be dancing, dancing, yeah! Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive! It's just your jive talkin' . . . yeahhhh!!!!!!!"

November of last year was the most recent setting for T. Gup to slip his svelte but aging body into a tuxedo. I was the best man at a wedding held in West Columbia, standing up for Jamie Tims when my longtime buddy took the hand of Vicky Briones in marriage. I am pictured with the groom in the lower photo, as well as in the shot above that includes both the bride and groom. Kalen Williams, Jamie's nephew, is standing to the left of me and DeMarcus Randall is the ring bearer standing in front of Jamie and me in the photo below. The other child in the photos is Ricky but I can't recall his last name. He is the son of one of the bride's best friends. DeMarcus is the son of Tanya Spears and Kalen is the son of Tyrone George, Jamie's older brother.

My memory is a bit cloudy but I think the photo above captures me wearing a tuxedo for the very first time. I was an usher in the wedding of my cousin Angie Gupton to her first husband, who Angie would probably prefer remain nameless, when I was in my late teens. I am photographed with Angie's uncle R.D. Jones.

I was in my twenties when I served as a groomsman in the wedding of my cousin Lynn Broadway and his bride Toni Dorsey. That's me on the left in the group photo above, pictured with, from left to right: my brother Cody Gupton, my cousin Gary Broadway, Randy Broadway Jr. standing in front of the groom Lynn Broadway, Lynn's best man Van Bertram, Tyler Broadway and my cousin Jack Randall Broadway. Lynn and Toni are the parents of current New York Mets pitcher Lance Broadway.

Double Deuce Birthday For Dee Money

Donald Ray Scott Jr. was born on this day, September 25th, twenty-two years ago today. "Dee" is now a grown man with children of his own, but images of him as a small child and teenager will forever be etched on the canvas of my memory. He and my youngest son Blake started school together in kindergarten and remained close friends throughout their school days, culminating in May of 2006 when they graduated from Columbia High School together. "Dee Money," as he likes to be called these days, was always a pleasant child and teen, easy to deal with as both his coach in sports and a "somewhat father figure" to him when he was hanging out at the Gupton household for many years when he was a kid. In fact, Dee was with my family almost as much as he was spending time with his own back in the days when he and my own boys were all involved in baseball, basketball, soccer, football and track. Donald Scott Jr. was a joy to watch compete in all of these different sports. He was always among the best, if not "THE" best at what he dedicated himself to doing. "Dee Money" was among the fastest sprinters to ever wear the maroon-and-white in both junior high school and high school, was an outstanding running back on the varsity Roughnecks football team, and was very good in the sports he abandoned when he made the decision as a high school athlete to focus on the two sports he felt he excelled in the most, football and track. I often wonder just how good Dee could have been in those abandoned sports--baseball, basketball and soccer--if he had continued to participate in them. He had the talent and skills to rise to the top in any sport he wanted to play, with ample training and coaching. I had the luxury of assisting William Minks in coaching Dee and his younger twin brothers, Jason and Justin Scott, as well as their older cousin, Andrew Jones, for several years in Little League baseball. That Scott foursome [Dee, Andrew, Jason and Justin] was on Coach Minks' baseball teams for many consecutive seasons when my son Blake was playing both minor league and major league baseball in the local Little League organization, and when they all were young teenagers on the Mudcats Babe Ruth League team. But that is all water under the bridge now, as the old saying goes, and wasting time ruminating over what might have been is just that . . . wasted time. So today, on Donald Ray Scott Jr.'s 22nd birthday, ol' Gup just wants to merely say to him, "Have a great day today, young man. I miss you lots; your absence from our lives over the past half-dozen years or so has left us wondering how you are getting along out there in that cruel old world we live in. Come see us sometime and if you happen to see my blog on the internet by some odd chance, know that Peggy and I still love you like you were one of our own boys." Happy Birthday, Kid!

Dee Scott was just like a member of the family for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He and my son Blake were like each other's shadows during the period when they seemed to always be on the same Little League, youth basketball and soccer teams. The photos of Dee, who celebrates his 22nd birthday today, were taken by me, the Gupster, at the beach and around the house when Dee was hanging out with Blake, Bret and Brian. "Dee Money" was eleven and twelve years old when these candid and posed shots were snapped.

The same four outstanding athletes from Charlie Brown Intermediate School in West Columbia that are pictured below as baseball all stars joined ranks on the basketball court in April of 2000 to form a very good "Hoop Jam" quartet. Pictured above are, kneeling (from left) my son Blake Gupton and Timmy Vernor, and standing (from left) Shane Minks and Dee Scott. Timmy is the son of Columbia High School's varsity boys basketball coach John Vernor.

My youngest son Blake Gupton is pictured kneeling beside the birthday boy, Donald Ray Scott Jr., in the photo above with their fellow West Columbia Little League All Stars Tim Vernor (left) and Shane Minks (right). I took this photo in July of 2000 with the quartet of all stars and best friends with their all star team coach William Minks, Shane's dad. I was the assistant coach to William in 2000.

Losing a beloved family pet

can be just as devastating to a true dog lover like myself as having to say goodbye to an actual family member. Wednesday morning I found my 13-year-old black lab mix Shiloh dead, ending our pet's lengthy battle with cancer and other health issues that canine's must deal with as they grow older. Born on February 23, 1996, in the backyard of our former home on Reverend Swinney Street in West Columbia, Shiloh was one of 10 puppies our dog Licorice delivered. Shiloh was the "pick of the litter" in my viewpoint and, as a result, was the only one of the 10 that we kept to raise ourselves. He was a wonderful companion, loyal family pet, and beautiful little ball of fur who grew into one of the best pets this lifetime animal lover has ever had. My heart was broken on the morning of September 23, 2009, when I realized that Shiloh's life had suddenly ended. In the absence of his mother Licorice, who died a couple years ago at the age of 14, Shiloh had shared our backyard on Gupton Lane for many years with our adopted beagle dog Shasta. It was devastating to witness Shasta lying near Shiloh's lifeless body Wednesday morning, well aware that Shasta's loss of her best friend was even greater than my own. The photo below indicates just how young my sons were when Licorice delivered her litter of puppies over 13 years ago. Brian (in the center holding Shiloh when he was a puppy) is now 27, Bret (at right below) is now 23, and a bespectacled Blake (at left) is now 21. For those of you who know my children and how they appear today, one can easily figure out just how much of these boys' lives their dog Shiloh has been a big part of. Peggy and I grieve over the deaths of each of our family pets with the same sense of great personal loss that we would struggle through when losing a human family member. So if either of us appears to be having a tough time getting through the coming days, forgive us and give us time to adjust to our futures without our beloved pet. Rest in peace, Shiloh. I buried you near your mother Licorice under the big ol' shade tree you always loved to spread out beneath on hot summer days. Your absence from our lives has already been a difficult adjustment. You were truly a special pet, a four-legged buddy I will never forget. I'm glad you are not hurting anymore, for that alone I am thankful, but I'm really gonna miss you, boy!

The photos above and below were taken in 1996 at the neighborhood park on Dance Drive in West Columbia when we still had three of Licorice's puppies. I definitely had my hands full while holding Shiloh and his litter mates when they were a few months old. My oldest son Brian Gupton holds baby Shiloh in the photo above while my younger sons Bret and Blake have a grip on Licorice's other two pups who were given away shortly after these pictures were taken. I can only hope and pray that all of Licorice's puppies that were given away 13 years ago lived long, happy and healthy lives like their brother Shiloh did.

Shiloh was extremely lucky to spend the first eleven years of his life with his mother. They were constant companions in our backyard and now, after Shiloh's life here with us, the family who loved him, came to an end, he is now reunited with his mother Licorice in "doggy heaven." After I informed my wife that Shiloh had died Wednesday morning, Peggy said that our old dog, whose movement of his left front leg had been hampered by the large tumor on his chest region, was now running with ease once again, chasing squirrels in heaven. Our female dog Licorice is pictured in the back of my truck several years ago with her boy Shiloh.

In this photo of my dog Shiloh taken when he was 12 years old, my ol' boy is starting to show how advancing age and living with cancer was beginning to have an affect on him. The inoperable malignancy that limited Shiloh's mobility resulted in a local veterinarian giving him a month to six weeks to live. That was over a year ago. Shiloh was determined he would go out when he was good and ready . . . and he did.