Go Softly Into Morning
I'm here because I belong to Students Against Driving Drunk. And your friends here want to start a chapter here at this school. And that would be great. You could do a lot. But I want to be straight with you.
It's not going to bring Nicole Chapman back.
It won't make anyone stop drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. You have to do that. One by one.
My brother Lee was seventeen when he and his friends crashed into the side of a divider in the centre of the expressway. They were partying. They killed themselves, a guy and his wife in another car.
Afterwards, I felt a lot like you do now. Crying one day and the next, pretending nothing was wrong. But mostly I was angry. I had a right to be angry. Not at the world. Not at myself. But at my brother.
Cause he was stupid. He thought he was more powerful than death. And nobody is.
Not Lee.
Not Nicole.
I heard how special she was. How bright and talented. But she made one mistake you just can't make. She got into the car of a guy that was drunk.
She wasn't smart enough to say "No, let's call someone." "Let's walk" Anything. You don't have to be a genius to figure that out.
Fact is, if we don't wise up, there are going to be a few more people in this classroom lying out there in that expressway.
Life isn't forever because you're sixteen.
We all go to bars. And sometimes it's beer and wine. And usually there is one screw-up who wants to be cool and drive himself home and drive you home. But you gotta be smarter than that. Please.
There's nothing cool about being dead.