The second anniversary of this website passed without much banter about it Wednesday.

Wednesday was not a day to be self congratulating ourselves on stellar Facebook fan numbers and Google Analytics numbers which I consider strong for the market we are in.

No, our second anniversary was a day of tragedy, two young lives, the lives of two friends, cut short on a fishing trip, a trip they made frequently.

The week had already turned into a busy one, with news of the Antwaan Clanton rape arrest, a nice event at the airport and word from a source I should probably call the state Department of Correction about Clanton's mistaken release from prison.

Then, of course, there was the board of commissioners meeting in Halifax about the transfer station Tuesday night.

Surprisingly, I slept well and woke around 6 a.m. Wednesday to find a text message sent to my phone around 4 a.m. about the search for two missing people around the Thelma area.

I knew then, with the exception of posting Bill Eleczko's happy birthday illustration to the Facebook page, that was it.

Wednesday was not a day for gloating, it was a day for reflection, almost uncanny since on Sunday I talked with my mother on the anniversary of her son's death in 1953, a brother I never knew, who died in the most horrific way imaginable, getting caught in the drain pipe of the town pool in Murfreesboro. That pool, which sat on what I call the outskirts of town, has long been closed and on the few times I have reason to pass where it used to be, I can only imagine the hell, the pain, the torture my mother and father went through that day.

I saw that pain on the last Christmas my father was alive when, retrieving decorations from the attic, he found the funeral registry book and broke down and cried. Those were the things on my mind Wednesday.

So, as I sit here now, keeping my eye out on news of the NFL lockout, I think I'm going to bypass a big anniversary column and just keep on with the business of news.

I could sit here and tell you the trials and tribulations of owning a news website still in its infancy, but there's no need to, I'm sure many of you know what it's like starting your own business and I have faith that rrspin.com will continue to grow, not only in the number of visitors but in the quality of news and monetarily so I don't have to worry about meeting the cell phone bill and having enough cash to put gas in the car, among other things.

No, even as I write this now, I think about the events of Wednesday and how two friends hanging out with each other and enjoying themselves died that night or morning, the sheer terror of it, as one apparently, according to evidence at the scene, must have tried to save the other.

To say my mind was squarely on the immediacy of the morning probably wouldn't be exactly true, although it makes for a good ending to this column. I guess through the week, as I often do, I wonder what it would have been like to have a big brother and would my life be different or the same. I compare that to the bond the two friends who died apparently had. Would my brother and I have that same bond?

For a few minutes, however, my mind Wednesday morning was on the immediacy of the moment, not thinking too much about the future, but about the right here and right now. I guess in the news business, that's where my mind should have been that day. Rest in peace Tashun Tillery and Trelvin Daniels and rest in peace James Lee Martin, the brother I never knew — Lance Martin