was a graduate of westwood high school and mit he was tragically killed while driving while he was riding his bicycle mrs lester has shared her personal story with westwood students in the past and with over but fifty begin with once upon a time and end with they lived happily ever after but we don't live in fantasyland we live in the land of reality and the reality of it all ears more people have been killed on the public roads of america about truck drivers than the total number of americans have been killed in all of the wars fought by this country beginning with the american revolution if we were to build a monument to the many victims of drunk driving it would take one more than twenty times bigger than the vietnam memorial just to list those who've been killed not to mention the many many more who have been seriously injured some disfigured and permanently disabled well people can talk a lot about statistics i'm going to tell you about just one but remember back of each drunk driving statistic there is a story a story of hopes and dreams and would be contributions to society forever lost replaced only the broken hearts and the empty arms of family and friends and back of each truck driving victim they're all these rippling victims peripheral victims i call them not just family and friends but other folks just like you who might have benefited from that person's lifetime accomplishments and contributions to this world our son albert lester wanted to be a teacher but he was killed on his back sicko a teenage drunk volunteer leader and we lost our son and our other son's only brother in the world lost a friend well it was probably in fulton county new york they had a safe night it prom but not everyone went to the prom there were five boys to were nineteen one eighteen and his brother was sixteen and his friend going on a tourist attraction the twenty four hour bicycle challenge there were seventy top bicyclists from all over the eastern united states and canada bicycling around i forty t house loop of rural road testing their insurance for the race across america but one of those cyclist was our so much albert lester of what was thirty would a graduate of him he had recently given up his engineering career to prepare to teach high school mathematics and science he had said he wanted to do something more socially meaningful with his life than his high tech job could offer and he wanted to be a part of the future teaching in the here at westwood high school he was in the class of nineteen seventy eight and here he excelled in my art and science in foreign languages and he loved art history he sang in school musicals acted in class plays he ran track he was on the math team he was a star scout and he enjoyed can't pick and model rocket astronomy and he enjoyed doing all of the fun things that kids like to do but just before his junior year when he was looking forward to his sixteenth birthday and driver h alcohol or food around with any drugs they tend to trigger seizures and he could not be licensed to drive a car for two more years so while his friends got their licenses and drove and he got back to matty just didn't help the new student to come well that was the first of many long distance bicycling trips and over the next ten years he bicycled por than fifty thousand  this country and in europe he had a really good on his bike and it had his academic education with cultural enrichment and exciting stories he would have loved to have shared with his students in bicycling in europe he stayed in international hospitals and grew in understanding the road of these international friendships in maintaining world peace and he noticed the solutions that was about twenty years ago and he was concerned about it then through his trips albert became involved with the american youth hostels now called hostel in international environment in american youth hostels nationwide he was nominated for the national board and honored for his leadership friendship and understanding and he was listed as an outstanding young man of america in recognition of outstanding professional achievement superior leadership ability and exceptional service to the community well his involvement in american youth hostels led to his decision to teach he resigned from his attic job and applied to graduate school to pursue a masters degree and teacher certification his application to harvard he wrote as a teacher i would hope to encourage and inspire young people to live their lives to the greatest potential both inside the classroom and outside the classroom he wrote the future of this country and of the world depends on the youth of today it is they will be the leaders of nations the captains of industry of tomorrow and he wrote i have many happy memories from my days as a student that west  teacher i would hope to give my students similar memories he wrote it through his passing can trip he had learned about places and people in but they did for a living and but most importantly he had learned about himself close by writing i believe i have what it takes to be a good teacher and that by attending harvard can fulfill that dream so what happened what happened to that dream and why is it that now i act go ask good and tell alpert story instead of albert being there to teach  and i'm sure albert enjoyed his ride that afternoon and was well lighted for that night ride but shortly after midnight on a straight stretch of road on the course a car going dined five miles an hour pas yos whatever your favorite junk food is like those puffy little cheese things it's hard to have just one and it's easy to lose count after two but even a small amount of power can affect one's judgment and that's the first thing to go that affects one's judgment and concentration reflex actions essential for safe driving while two of the boys had passed out and the other three wanted to go out they had lost their good sense and they headed for the car the two brothers even argued over which one would dr beer as a way of making one feel overly confident indestructible like i can do anything not degenerate or happened to me and the eighteen year old tried to drive after drinking albert was flung off into the ditch the car went on down hill ran off the other side of the road rode over and landed on its roof you know some of the three boys climbed out the back window they were not hurt but they worse catered and they ran off in different directions but not far off the road the beer and the fear caught up with the driver he passed out and he slept in the woods until dawn and when he did wake up he was disoriented he got lost and wandered out onto a different road and who should be the first person to come along to pick him up his mother she had been out looking for him during the night while his father and older brother waited and searched near the crash site well meanwhile at home here in westwood two hundred miles away i had become extremely nervous strangely so i left noon and into the nothing about midnight i found i just went to the basement to start a project that albert was going to help me do when he got back i worked hard for two hours and then us stopped and i wondered if albert would be proud of me and some how in one of those strange mysteries of life these words came to me i'm proud of you you've always done how you could for me mom i'm in good hands now go to bat it get some sleep you're going to need your rest as i pass through the kitchen unnoticed to tell him that turned out to be the exact time when the county patrol came on the scene albert bicycle strewn in pieces down the road leading to the overturned car and no one in saudi and early that  any parent ever has to do is to bury their child well that sunday while we made arrangements for a funeral and arraignment was held for the driver his parents had to hire a defense attorney round up money for bail and see their son in handcuffs and chains and later the grand jury issued a diet much including that slaughter hardly the way the boys expected their beer party to turn out and in due time the driver took responsibility for his actions and pleaded guilty sp the agony and the ordeal of a truck out and in september when many eighteen year olds would off to college into the service or to a dude job the driver would have to j to start serving his term and to prepare himself for what was to come senate sing and state prison he left behind his family was stopped and i was ordered to get help there was anger this it happened at no way we could make it happen no way could we recover albert and no way promotions and marketing practices after all that rage by calling every single candidate for public office whose name would appear on my ballot and by then later about writing to thankful to see some changes happen since then but that first fall my husband thought well maybe it would feel better if we did something fun girls had never been in the city at night no seen a big circus and great was the excitement as we settled into our seats at the old boston garden the clowns clamor round and the elephant to land up for the opening parade did begin to relax but then when i looked up straight across that sports arena was a big survivors and they don't say anything about how poisoning or date rape my surprise pregnancies they don't talk about falling down the steps are passing out in  or the public dangers of trying to drive after drinking when the excitement of the circus was all over and we were going home in the quad in the dark i thought of something else the ads don't mention incarceration even though more than half the people in our jails and prisons are they are for something they did while under the influence of alcohol well not long after the circus we received a letter from the family of the young driver his father wrote that they had to put their son in jail but that would had put our son in a casket and what a sad and terrible thing that was for any family to have to do he wrote that their son would come home someday but that our son never could and there was not a thing today but that felt a fury for far too many families every day across the usa for the broken bodies broken hearts and broken dreams strewn on our american roadways by the mixing of alcohol just to me i'm so sorry and i said to him just to him take care of yourself and then i put the little cross in his hand and i took my seat then my family's life lester's of life and the lives of albert spare me he said i may be terrible mistake that i hope we shall could but cannot change i will live with what i have to listen and understand to never drink and drive i hope those people who hear or read what i have listened and understand to never drink and drive the young man spit almost three years in prison with strict parole for the balance of his four year sentence that's like college freshman sophomore junior year in prison with senior here on parole he told his father he would never drink again that it's just not worth it he's thirty six now twice as old as he was there and he's long since turned his life around but oh oh what a price which by the driver's older brother to replace one bill older brother but destroyed mysteriously i think it was used to make iraq walk about a since his son found prison but then like some kind of a miracle we each sense the pain of the other and we reached out to give comfort then we three parents all in our sixties stood together by the side of the road where the paths of our son said so tragically crossed and we talked those the children grow through their teenage years well then a year later when the young man had been away from home incarcerated for more than two years the circumstances were such that we would be passing right by the prison i had to think about it a lot i had to work it had my man and i had to work it out in my heart and also with the powers that be there at the prison but when the time in place came we did stop and i was about to go in to see the young man his parents were there with him in the only way they had to see their son during family visiting time on sunday morning we had a good visit and before have left i told him i put a lot of hope and faith in him and i said to him and maybe right sharply too don't you die here let me die on and right away he said i won't i won't let you down students don't let your family fasten your seatbelt and don't speed and passengers don't distract the driver and drivers don't horse around but try to show off and don't go playing around with the know your business of safe driving good night you have a wonderful time the problem stay safe and enjoy the rest of your life now i precious yet so fragile but first right well i think we all need to thank mrs lester one more time for that amazing presentation thank you so much for