Death: the beginning of an end...?

Was so tired that I slept immediately upon reaching home yesterday... got a good almost 2 hrs nap before getting up and heading for a piano lesson. Ignored 2 phone msgs along the way. When I finally got up and read them - One of the msgs was from Colin, a fellow musician and horn player, informing that Dr Alfred Reed has passed on... 17th Sept. This generation has seen so many great people live and pass on... it has also seen so much catastrophe and tragedies... is it because the previous ones weren't so much recorded or because we're really 'killing' our kind and our Earth...? I'm no Historian or Geographian... but still can't help wondering, can I... we're always supposed to look at things from different perspectives... there're so many that I'll probably end up with a library full of writings before even getting near any answer... only to open another huge can of worms... I digress...

Dr Alfred Reed had made a name for himself in the windband scene... having written so many works for band... any band member would know or have played at least a piece of music by him... and to think, I saw him a couple of years ago, in 2003... in Chicago during the Midwest Clinic... He was so approachable and friendly... no 'air' of any sort to indicate that he was a cut above the rest... In just this year alone, I've played 3 of his arr/composition this year alone...! That pic I took with him in 2003 is gonna be so valuable...