You Never Know    
    
   Last Sunday morning an exceptional athlete and man, Kobe Bryant, and his daughter took communion at a Catholic church. A short time later, they were greeted in heaven - we choose to believe - after his private Sikorsky-76 helicopter made high-speed impact on a foggy mountain north of Los Angeles. 

   Who wouldn't want to fly over ridiculous Los Angeles traffic? We can't imagine Bryant family grief and that of others who lost loved ones on that routine flight to a girls' basketball event. 

   When we played in our high school band, we rode buses to football games. There are bus accidents among others, but we never thought of risk as we rode home singing, "99 beers on the wall." 

   God didn't invent buses, or aircraft. There were no casualties until after the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, and no helicopter incidents before Sikorsky.  

   History is filled with ship losses, but none so infamous until men built the "unsinkable" Titanic.  

   So we enjoy the life modern rides enable, but it sure hurts when gravity wins.  

   Years ago, Bruce our second cousin in Texas was on a small jet after covering a high-school football game for his TV station. No one determined why the plane suddenly nose dived. His first cousin in Ohio, Eric, fell victim to a drunken driver. You never know.  

   A helicopter flight instructor at Van Nuys airport said Bryant's pilot "likely got disoriented in the fog. It's a common thing that happens in airplanes and helicopters.

   "If you're flying visually, if you get caught where you can't see out the windshield, the life expectancy of the pilot and the aircraft is maybe 10, 15 seconds, and it happens all the time, and it's really a shame."

   As it was for JFK Jr., his wife and her sister one dark night. 

        Jimmy