Time is still on my side and I try to live it without any fear of what comes next.
I believe that only thing that really matters for any human being is the time they spend on this earth and how they use it.
When my time is up and my life is over I know there will be a feeling of peace and understanding and acceptance of that ever comes next.
My first wife died three years ago along with most of my close friends from the first part of life. I have been lucky. I have never had anyone die that I was close to while they were still a part of my life. They just ran out of time.
Last Thursday a stock car racer I knew by the name of Dick Trickle, age seventy-one, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a N.C., cemetery.
Trickle's family said he had been suffering from pain that doctors couldn't diagnose or stop, and that led him to commit suicide.
Dick Trickle was one of the best short-track drivers who ever lived, he won over a 1,000 races on small local tracks before he started racing in NASCAR at 48 years old an age when most drivers are thinking about retiring.
Trickle had a working cigarette lighter in every race car he drove so he could light up during the caution laps.
I will always remember sitting in a little restaurant and talking to Trickle outside a race track sometime in the 90s.
He was fighting a hangover holding a cup of coffee in one hand, smoking a cigarette and laughing about the party he had been to last night.
He drove out the cemetery that he wanted to be buried in called the cops and told them where to find his body, walked a little ways from his truck so no one had to deal with cleaning anything up, and he moved on.
He knew when his time was up and I know he ended his life without any fear of what comes next. That's how he lived life when time was still on his side.
Time is still on my side and until the day that changes I plan on enjoying it.
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