By Patrick Cowles

Daily Titan Asst. News Editor

“Before your time here is over, one of those you see in this room will be dead,” said a school administrator at my high school freshman orientation. I will never forget those words or the place and time where I heard them.

Within the gymnasium at Los Alamitos High School, a large square-shaped, hand-drawn “road map” of our high school career sat still, hung between two of the retractable bleacher stands.

At the time, coming to the realization that one of us would be dead by the end of that map seemed impossible for us. We were invincible teenagers.

Yet, by fate or fortune, the words I heard crawled up my spine the Saturday morning of Feb. 22, 2004.

After waking, I stumbled to my computer to discover I had received a new message from my friend Jimmy. “Have you heard about Autumn?” it read.

I hadn’t, but I instinctively knew the news was bad.

Autumn Emenegger moved into the neighborhood in eighth grade, during 1999.

By 2004, we had known each other a few years; we were friends but not close.

One summer day, my door bell rang. To my surprise, my friends Derick and David stood outside.

“Hey man,” they said, as I opened the door, curious about their arrival.

“Where does that new girl live?” they asked.

From there we charged down the street, eager and wild, restless summer boys chasing the latest girl in the neighborhood.

She lived six houses down I remembered. I made sure to count the houses after the first time I noticed her.

Within seconds of ringing her doorbell, the double-doors flung wide open. The front room of her house had a large window facing the street with some drapes; she must have seen us coming.

“Hi,” Autumn said. That was the first time I spent time with her.

I’ll never forget her pool table; it was our ice-breaker. I can’t tell you how many games we played – quite frankly, I can’t tell you if we played a game at all.

Autumn had a vibrant personality that I have rarely witnessed elsewhere. The atmosphere changed when we were around her.

That first day we just hung out – four teens spending time together, nothing special but certainly memorable, with the pool table providing white noise to the social scene – but she was the gravity that pulled us together that day.

A close friend and Cal State Fullerton grad student Kristine Magnien will never forget her “infectious laugh,” or her ability to “easily uplift people when they needed a break from a bad day.”

On the night of Friday, Feb.21, 2004, Autumn and her boyfriend of four years, Jacob, went to a party in Long Beach. Both had been drinking, but Jacob drove.

As they headed home, Jacob lost control of his vehicle and crashed, leading to such severe trauma that Autumn succumbed to her wounds before paramedics got her to the hospital.

This is the mortality that is omnipresent when combining these aspects of American culture.

We have been a nation of drinkers since the beginning. And through technology, we have become a nation of drivers.

The maze of asphalt that now spans Southern California provides a great example to express this cultural aspect. Our infrastructure has been built for vehicular travel.

But we must use clear judgment while using a vehicle or consuming alcohol by keeping them separate.

If you can’t afford a taxi, you can’t afford to drink. We all need to heed this advice and learn from the mistakes made by others.

Magnien found the following poem while going through Autumn’s room after her death.

“Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words / Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions / Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits / Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character / Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.”

Autumn Emenegger was born Sept. 23, 1986 and died on Feb. 22, 2004. She was 17.