This will be my last story that involves death...sorry, we will call this story "Pintura"

When I was a young boy I had a neighbor named Milt. I loved Milt like a second father. He would always take me on adventures and give me outboard motors to fix up. Once he gave me superglue to attach quarters to the sidewalk, which was so funny by the way. Anyway, years later he was in Costa Rica skydiving like he always did. On this day however his airplane crashed into the Pacific. He and everyone on board died. There was one lucky fellow who did survive. He was young like me. He had jumped out of the plane just prior to its crashing. This young man survived in the sea for at least a day fending off salt water crocodiles and bull sharks before he was picked up by a Japanese freighter. A few days later at Milt's funeral, I would meet him.

So, the evening prior to the funeral I had made a really awesome paper airplane. I was having lots of fun throwing it around, until it got stuck way up in a tree and I decided to retrieve it. That is when I fell and dislocated my shoulder. I went to the ER and they repositioned it, gave me some painkillers and a sling.

The next day I went to the funeral looking all bruised and battered with my arm in a sling. People kept coming up to me and bringing me cookies and shaking my hand. One lady looked me in the eye and held back tears and told me I was brave. As it turned out the young man who escaped the crash was at the funeral and people were clearly mistaking me for him. That didn't stop me from accepting a little pampering. When I talked to the guy, he was really nice. His plane crashed, he was stranded at sea, and he looked great. Then, there was me. I fell climbing a tree to get a paper airplane. And I looked like a beaten-down street fighter. Just so you know, I paid some neighbor kids to get that paper airplane down from the tree.

This story is dedicated to Katrina