Okay, maybe not a million, but a few thousand. I didn’t catch the story this morning on CNN Headline News radio, as I had to come in to work, but the general idea is that a person found a briefcase literally full of money and returned it. From time to time these stories pop up in the news and it gives people a warm and fuzzy feeling. These stories go a long way to showing that goodness still exists in human nature.

Now, what would I do if I had found the money? I would have returned it. That is the easy thing to say when you aren’t faced with a decent amount of money that is yours for the taking. Can we all really know that we would return free and clear money?

There are a lot of ways that a few thousand dollars could make my life easier. Pay off my car, the little credit card debt, maybe even pay off my home. Sure would be nice to have that gift just pop up in your face one day.

I believe that returning the money would have to be done. Yeah, I might enjoy the short-term benefits of whatever I did with the cash, but returning it would do so much more in my opinion.

The person who lost it might not lose their job. They could deposit their life savings. They could buy their first home. They could stuff it in their mattress.

Whatever the “loser” decides to do, it would make both them and I feel much better to have the money returned.

Well, it looks like we will have to endure another summer of noise from the raceway. The track is at least 10 miles from my home, but is loud enough to pollute my neighborhood with its noise. I do pity anyone trying to sleep at the hotels which are perhaps a mile due-north of the track. Could you imagine staying at a hotel while on vacation with your family at a nice little interstate town and not getting to bed until midnight thanks to the incessant roaring? Personally, I would demand a refund, checkout, and cross that town off my list of ever again visiting.

The track is an attraction, it does bring in some money at gas stations and food chains, but is that really worth the hatred of an entire city? I wouldn’t think so, but apparently the owners do feel it is worth the annoyance.

In a town with so little else to do, some can find entertainment with the racing. I even enjoy watching a good race from time to time. What I do not enjoy is the noise pollution that the entire town has to deal with even if they do not want to watch the race.

The track does not need to be closed, in my opinion. However, there do need to be sound barriers installed. To my knowledge, at this time there are no such barriers erected. Don’t close the track and lose an attraction, but reduce the noise pollution to a bearable level. Most items I have read echo the sentiment that the track is not bad, but the noise is not worth the hassle.

The simple solution is to erect some noise barriers. The racetrack stays open, we keep an attraction, and the noise level is reduced in consideration of the whole city.

This morning on my way to work, I listened to a bell tolling for the victims of the Virginia Tech murders. CNN radio was playing the remembrance ceremony live, and I felt obligated to listen. Personally, it is a matter of respect for all of those victims who were gunned down by a lunatic. Listening to the bell toll for every one of them is the very least I could do, while thinking, reflecting and praying for all affected by these losses.

Perhaps it was the loss of my aunt and cousins in the train wreck, but I do feel that I can empathize on some level with these people. Losing someone is a horrible experience. Losing multiple people at once is almost unbearable. Fortunately, we had great support and made it through the trying times. I pray that those affected by this tragedy can do the same.

An unfortunate activity that has made me extremely upset is the fact that so many are using this incident to further their personal agendas. An amazing example is all of the anti-video game people blaming video game violence for this atrocity. I take issue with that logic – there were no video games found in his room. How did games cause this when there were none?

Next up, we have the anti-weapon people screaming that we should eliminate any possession of guns by anyone but perhaps police and the military. I take great issue with that branch of thought. Our constitution provides for us to lawfully own weapons with good reason. This country is still very young, and our country’s creators knew that try as they might, the republic they created could fail. The government could fall into a state like what they fought to escape, and the people may need to rise up and overtake their government.

We hope that type of situation never occurs, but it may, and I would like to be prepared. In a more practical sense, weapons serve the purpose of hunting and home/personal defense. People should face the reality that criminals will use weapons, illegal or not, and I should be able to defend my home and property with one. I’m not saying I need an M-16, but my pistol should suffice.

Over the next few weeks, some will mourn, some will try to capitalize, but everyone will move forward. One great commonality of the human spirit is that however we cope with an event, we will carry on and move forward.