I was sitting here thinking of Michael, missing him, remembering random moments in the not so distant past yet it seems like dream in the far off distance... Like the memory was so long ago it replays in my mind in black and white, before memories had color. Michael was 4 years old 1998 and we were headed to Georgia from Reno, which is a very long drive, especially for a toddler. We had just made it through a rather scary storm with hail, sideways rain, and lightning where one lightning bolt struck the ground so close to us that it made the SUV jump halfway into the other lane!! luckily there wasn't any oncoming traffic at that moment. Michael had been sleeping until the loud crack Boom of that bolt of lightning, he whimpered just a little and I told him not to be scared it was just a little rain, right about that time we came to a bridge and pulled to the side of the road underneath it to wait out the storm ( there was 3-4 other vehicles that had the same idea). I crawled into the back seat next to Michael to comfort him. He wasn't all the way awake yet and must of been dreaming about cops and robbers or something, because he insisted on the lightning being bad guys and that he would save us using his toy lazer light up tazer Star Trek type gadget that made all sorts of nerve racking buzzing pew pew loolilooli sounds. So every time the sky lit up swiftly followed by a crack ground shaking Boom...there was my brave little Michael pew pew "got em' " and bzzzlilouliloo "got another one mom!" Thankful he was handling the situation so well when most kids his age would be wailing and trying to shrink back from the whole of it, I went along with his game, and kept applauding his bravery. The storm lightened up and I got back in front, buckled up and we were back on the road...for a couple minutes at least until a highway patrolman driving opposite us drove past and immediately did a smoking tire u turn flashing lights a siren sounding off...it was on our tail like we had just robbed a bank! We pulled over ( meanwhile the driver of our road adventure realized he wasn't wearing his seatbelt, and was attempting to ease it into place inconspicuously). The officer walked up to the passenger side and was looking rather surprised to see the driver was magically now wearing his seatbelt. After the formalities of asking ( with his heavy southern draw) for license / registration  / insurance, he proceeded to argue with our driver about the magical seat belt. Then somehow got on the topic of the driver being a Marine and myself just out of the Army. The officer was an Army Vet so he took the liberty of cracking a few "jarhead" jokes and seeing the driver butt hurt that he was not only being teased by the patrolman but now both of us were cracking up, well it seemed to have lightend the mood and we were gonna get to drive off without a ticket. He tipped his hat and told me to keep the "jarhead" in line and turned to walk away...when Micheal ( I assume misunderstood) suddenly leaned forward pointing his ray toy at the officer PewPew and very loadly yelled "Don't tell My Mom What To Do, I blowd him up for you mommy"! The look on that officers face was pure shock, he even looked like he was gonna be sick! I quickly turned and calmly told Michael " Michael Eric!, You know better then to point that at people, even though it's just a toy, and the officer is a good guy, he's the one that gets the bad guys for us". Michael was not convinced but now he wanted to know why the officer stopped us if we aren't bad guys. Needless to say we drove away with a seatbelt ticket and a rather exhausted officer standing by his cruiser scratching his head from trying to explain or stutter an answer to Michaels very intuitive question...