Beep beep and beep beep yeah

Obituaries for my former high school classmates are coming faster and closer together as time goes on. This obit is for one of my classmates from the graduating class of 1965.

Beep is not her real first name, but my wife and I can’t remember what it is. Sally thinks it might be Susan. Whatever it is, her survivors and the obituary writer didn’t put it in her obit. I guess everyone just knew her as Beep.

Beep as she was when we knew her.

The obit mentions that she was the first female auto mechanics student in Utah.. That was a big deal in those days, and it got her some attention. If I hadn’t seen the obituary, and if someone had asked me what I remember about Beep it would have been that she studied auto mechanics with a shop full of boys.

The write-up also tells that after living in another state she had come back to Utah because of her relationship with Roger W. (her “first boyfriend”), who was also a 1965 classmate. Roger owns an automotive business, and was in the news in 1993 when he was tried for murder.

Roger in high school.

The story that came out is that a violent, psychopathic ex-convict named Daniels was getting 50% of the profits of Roger’s business through threats and physical abuse. One day Roger had had enough. When Daniels came at him with a screwdriver Roger shot him twice, in the face and heart, with a .357 magnum. What got Roger tried for murder was due to his next moves: he told some men to call the police, then went back and administered a coup de grace. He shot Daniels two more times in the back.

The prosecutor said that was homicide, not self-defense. In the trial it came out that Daniels was “essentially” dead when Roger put the second set of two bullets in him. Witnesses came forward to say they had seen Daniels beat Roger either with fists or shop tools, including a hammer. The jury believed Roger’s version of self-defense and acquitted him.

In the end Beep was with Roger. It says in her obituary that she developed diabetes when she was 12, and that’s a terrible disease. I am surprised she made it to the age she was when she died. I hope she and Roger had some good times together. It seems to me they both deserved it.