Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young must have been thinking of us in “Teach Your Children.” The dreamy, insistent lyrics are instructive in a melancholic sort of way:
You, who are on the road must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they pick’s the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
Nash’s second verse repeats the first from the opposite point of view; children, teach your parents. It was popular, but not a generational anthem. Still, it expresses an idea that has mesmerized humans since before the beginning of time: how to pass your knowledge to the next generation.
Rarely as a freelance writer am I reluctant to intrude on people’s lives, albeit delicately, if possible. Yet a recent shooting near Talladega, Alabama is one of those times.
Chris Gaither is an 11-year-old who lives with his mother and stepfather. A few weeks ago, he was home alone doing what kids do after school, petting the dogs and “messing around,” when he heard a noise upstairs. The noise scared him, but Chris picked up a knife to defend himself.
When Chris peeked up the stairwell, he saw a man coming at him with a gun. The man told Chris he was going to kill him, “f### you and all that.”
Instead of hiding or peeing in his pants, Chris ran to a drawer and picked up a loaded 9mm handgun. Chris then threatened to shoot the intruder and ordered him out of the house. “I guess when I pulled the gun out on him he didn’t think it was a real gun ‘cause he didn’t worry about it,” Chris said. “He just kept on walking.”
Unfortunately for the clueless burglar, Chris was holding a real gun and, due to his stepfather’s patience and instruction, he knew how to use it. Once the man made it outside, Chris fired a warning shot. Carrying what news reporters described as a “stolen laundry hamper,” the man began to run, whereupon Chris emptied the magazine, firing 12 shots by the time the intruder neared a fence in the family’s front yard. The final shot hit the bungling burglar in the leg.
Chris noted he “shot through the hamper [the man] was carrying” with “a full metal jacket bullet. It went straight through the back of his leg. He started crying like a little baby.”
The criminal was taken to a local hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening. No charges are pending at this time.
Chris and his mother said they were familiar with the intruder, although they don’t know him well or know his name. Chris referred to the man as “a meth-head” in his 30s who had robbed them before and who is known for targeting other homes in the area.
Then, in his own coup de grace, Chris added, “I hope you learned your lesson from coming to this house trying to steal stuff. Be brave, you’ll be okay. Trust God.”
Liberal media as well as criminal defense attorneys have mocked the 11-year-old. Some have called for his arrest for violating the strictly written though often loosely interpreted “Stand Your Ground” law in Alabama. After all, the burglar was apparently leaving when Chris began shooting.
Me? I want to give the boy, his mother and stepfather a medal because they definitely have a code to live by.
