Yesterday was a day of almosts, great sadness, and great happiness.

I found myself rooting for Smarty Jones in the Belmont Stakes, but my son was right...he wasn't able to hold up through the longer distance and lost in the last few seconds. So the Triple Crown waits for another suitor next year...maybe.

Then the Tampa Bay Lightning had everyone on pins and needles for much of the night until Martin St. Louis scored a goal early in the second OT period to force the Stanley Cup Final Game Seven in Tampa! It's now one game, WINNER TAKE ALL!!! What a night that will be tomorrow!

Then there was the death yesterday of former President Ronald Reagan. While I and many fellow Democrats disagreed with many of his policies and programs, we salute his years of service to our nation and are deeply saddened as the rest of America this morning at his passing. Alzheimer's disease is something I would not wish on anyone, and I simply pray that if I became stricken as Reagan that God would take me early so that my family would not have to deal with the long period of suffering that his beloved wife Nancy must have dealt with. And give her a great deal of credit for always being there, never publicly complaining or lamenting about his condition, simply taking things as they came. She has handled herself with a dignity and class through such a lengthy ordeal.

Finally, I watched Urban Cowboy yesterday on one of the cable channels. It always brings back memories when I see the John Travolta movie, as much of it was filmed in and around Pasadena, Texas, one of the blue-collar suburbs southeast of Houston. I lived there while in high school during the early/mid 1970s, and passed by Gilley's nightclub many times (it burned down under suspicious circumstances several years after the film was made after country singer Mickey Gilley and his manager, who owned "The World's Biggest Honky-Tonk" parted ways under less-than-good terms). I found love in Pasadena then too, and still think about that girl to this day. Well, she's married to a computer games designer and has a family in Austin, Texas...those were the days.