My life is filled with random meetings......

When I arrived here in the Northern State back in '06, I took a month off from work.  It was truly the first and (so far) only long stretch of unemployment I had ever been through.  And it was okay, because we got out of the Golden State just before the bust, and we had a little extra lying around, so it wasn't necessary for me to work.

Except I was new in this area; and I didn't know anybody.  And I didn't know anything about the place except that it took me driving constantly for about 38 hours to get here.  And I was pretty sure it would snow.  So, the time off was pretty unbearable after about....well.....four days.

So, I went looking for a job, and eventually found one in the airline industry.

I was one of those guys you see when you look out the window of the aircraft, putting your luggage in the plane, driving those carts around, waving those lighted wands about to signal the plane to go and come back and such.

Remind me to tell you the story of attempting to load a plane when the temperature was -30 and the wind was howling at around 40 mph.  You learn how to dress for conditions.  And yes, you do wind up looking a little like the Michelin Man.

But that's not the story.

About five months after I joined the airline, the Government called.  And since it was better pay and indoors, I jumped at it.  I put on a uniform and learned to do stuff and I treated people with respect and most of the time they gave it back.

I was one of the guys behind the machine that looks in your bags and waves a wand around you to hear it go "beep."

I answered a lot of questions about a lot of beeps.  And no, I never caught a terrorist.  But I did find several knives, some bullets, and a gun.

Remind me to tell you just how many times somebody says that they forgot the loaded gun was in their bag, when it was right on top; the LAST thing they would have put in the bag before bringing it to the airport.

Also remind me to tell you about my Security Motto:  I don't care if you're building a bomb in your garage, just don't bring it with you to the airport.

But that's not what I was going to talk about, either.

I want to talk about a guy named Bill Carns.

He flew regularly out of our little Northern State Capitol Airport; and he was a very nice fellow in a lot of obvious pain.  He was in a wheelchair; he couldn't use the left side of his body, and his speech was a little slurred.  But he was very friendly as I approached him to do some screening.

He said, unbidden, "I was Richard Ramirez' last victim."

In 1985, the Night Stalker serial killer broke into his California house, killed his girlfriend and shot him in the head, leaving him for dead.  That very evening, a keen-eyed teenager caught a license plate number, and shortly thereafter, Ramirez was captured.  He was tried, and sentenced to death.

And he sat on Death Row from 1986 until his death from reasonably natural causes last night.

I heard the news this morning, and thought of my first encounter with Mr. Carns; how easily he talked about his ordeal, and the scars he carried with him with not even a hint of "why me?"  I thought about how he would take the news, how he would react to the death of the monster that rearranged his life so horribly, so completely.....

But if there was a just God in Heaven, Mr. Carns would have miraculously regained the use of his body, and all his faculties, as Mr. Ramirez began his long awaited trip to Hell.

But the only justice here is that Mr. Carns unwilling sacrifices brought about the end of this monster's spree, and saved lives.

Good wishes to you, Bill Carns.  Thank you for sharing your story.