It's not all cornfields and prairies in Illinois. Along the Mississippi river stretch the bluffs, cloud-like sand colored cliffs that provide a hundred mile view of the river and the woods. At one spot, there's a dirt trail leading through the woods and into a clearing on the edge of the high bluffs. It's called King's Chair. I've been there a thousand times, hiking with girlfriends or snuggling up to watch the sun go down with a boyfriend. Any Alton kid you ask knows King's Chair.

A boy I went to high school with had his 19th birthday in September. He graduated from Alton High in 2008, a year after I did. He was a jokester. His nickname was Kelso, because he looked and acted like Ashton Kutcher's "That 70's Show" character. Supposedly under the influence, he walked out to King's Chair around 3 a.m. on a Wednesday with a group of friends. For some reason, the group split up, and he was alone on the bluffs. When his friends hadn't heard from him in a while, they went to look, thinking he was playing a joke on them. Neighbors heard his friends calling his name that night, but they never found him.

It wasn't until 8 on Wednesday night that anyone called the police. The fire department found his body in thick brush at the bottom of the bluffs. Somehow, he had fallen off. There's a lot of heresy around town about how he fell and who is to blame, but that really isn't the point.

The point is this boy died when he had his whole life ahead of him. For those of us who have sat on King's Chair and looked across the Mississippi to the lives we have ahead of us, the story is especially tragic. It will haunt us no matter where we are. Home is never far away from our hearts. But he didn't die in vain if the rest of us take something from this.

It's up to those of us left to learn from this and remember that we aren't invincible. We're human, and accidents happen. It could have happened to any one of us. We've all stood where he stood. We've all made a few bad decisions. We're just lucky it never cost us our lives. This boy's death is going to disturb us all, and that's a good thing. If the rest of us think of him the next time we feel fearless, his death could save our lives.