Last Summer was a life changing experience for me. I will NEVER forget the summer of 2006. Four of Amador county’s students were killed in three different car accidents, and I knew every one of them. I didn’t talk to Kyle much, but I did know him. I knew Chris, but we weren’t that close. On the other hand, I’ve known Carl Littlefield and Jason Backer since third grade, we were all in the same class. When I lived in Plymouth, Carl would come over every day; Jason wasn’t over every day, but he was over quite a bit. Sometimes, Carl was over too much, but hey, that was Carl and we got used to it pretty quick. During the summer time, Carl would put his bed out on his porch so he could sneak over to our house when his family fell asleep. I remember one morning at like six a.m. Carl came over to show us his new football gear, he loved football so much, and he was really proud. When I lived in River Pines, Jason would come over and spend time with me and some of my girlfriends, he was like one of the girls sometimes.

Those two guys were a couple of the coolest kids I’ve ever met, and I was close to both of them. I still can’t believe I will never see Carl at my house again, and Jason will never tell me a funny joke or story again. I think about it every single day. Sometimes I wake up thinking about it, and a lot of the time I go to sleep the same way. It seems as if I’ll just see them around and if not, one of them is bound to show up at my house sooner or later. But then I realize I will never see Carl Littlefield or Jason Backer again unless it’s in a memory. It’s weird, I would have never pictured one of my closest friends in a coffin but now that I’ve seen it, I can still picture it quite vividly. I can see every little detail from the clothes they were wearing to what the coffins looked like. The weird thing is, my memory isn’t that great yet I’ll always be able to picture Carl and Jason, I will never forget that picture for as long as I live. I drive by the accident scene almost every day, and it’s hard to think that at the beginning of that road they were being loud and just having fun, but moments later the lives of two young boys were gone forever. It’s not fair, none of those boys got to live a long enough life. It’s sad that we all lost a friend, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, cousin, or even a son. Jason was like a father to his two little sisters, and I’m sure they miss him every single day. I could never even imagine being a parent to any of those boys or even Justin Meyers, who was in the car with Carl and may never be able to walk again.

July 8th 2006 was all bad news I awoke to pounding on my door telling me to get up, “the cops are here for you.” I jumped up, my heart rate was sky high, my thoughts were filtering through my head and all I could think was, “God, what did I do wrong?” When I got upstairs, they had some questions; they had questions on a missing person. They wanted to know who hung out with Carl Littlefield, so we showed them the football picture. We told them that Johnny Ogilvie, Jazz Ogilvie, Justin Meyers, Travis Sharps, Brian Dodd and Jacob where the main people he hung out with. They kept on asking about Travis, “how big is he, how tall?” So by this time we wanted to know what was really going on. They kept on asking questions like, “when was the last time you saw Carl and who was he with?” We told them that we had just seen him, Justin and Travis the night before at Chris’s funeral. They finally told us there had been a wreck late last night in Carl’s truck. All we asked them was if anyone died. They told us yes, but the wreck involved minors, and they couldn’t tell us anymore information on OUR friends. They told us not to call Travis’s house, so we had to sit for hours wondering which one of our best friends had died. We waited and waited, only to find out later it was Carl and Jason. The reason the cops came to my house was because they didn’t know who Jason was, and he carried no I.D. That’s why they thought it was Jacob or Travis. We all found out that Justin was at Sutter Roseville and he might not make it either. That was the worst moment of my life There is nothing like the feeling of a cop coming to your door at 5:30 in the morning to tell you that someone you love is dead. I will never forget how that felt. It sucks because you really don’t realize how much you love and care about someone until they’re gone.

Now, I’d give anything to be able to have Carl come over to my house, and wake me up one last time, or have Jason over talking at the top of his lungs just one last time. They were both good for that. I’d give anything to be able to see them smile one last time. I’m so glad I got to know them but I feel cheated just like everyone else, that they were gone so fast. I have so many good memories of time spent with them, but I know there were so many yet to come. Our time was cut short.

Carl was so excited that he was going to turn 18 but he didn’t quite make it. He was only about two weeks away. He was also excited about graduating. Jason didn’t get to graduate but he was going to soon, Jason was supposed to be with me at the school on Monday enrolling in the senior program but I was stuck alone. I will be walking alone at graduation, because Jason was the only one I could see walking beside me.

Through this tragedy, I’ve met some really cool people. Even though I lost two of my best friends I got to meet the ones closest to them. I even found out that Carl’s cousin is my half sister’s cousin, so our families are kinda linked.

It’s so weird how things work out,. Sometimes you like it and other times you will just plain hate it. Well you know what they say, what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger. After this summer, Amador County has a lot of strong people in it, and I know for a fact it has made me a stronger person. The summer of 2006 was the hardest part of my life and I’m sure there are other people who feel the same way.