Feeling useless at a crime scene

So here's the short version: Teenage girl, presumably home for the summer from college, gets robbed at knifepoint in a study room in Glastonbury's library this afternoon.

I got involved when the girl came running into the study room I was in (right next to hers) and, frantically and hysterically, screams that a guy walked into her study room and, after pulling a knife on her, demanded money and anything else she had that was worth money.

This is not the kind of thing one would expect on an otherwise calm late afternoon in an affluent Connecticut suburb.

After the girl came to me, she led me toward the front door, as if in pursuit of the thief. He stole her laptop, cellphone and some cash. Although she did not get physically hurt, the girl had suffered emotional damage, and you could tell this was the kind of thing that could possibly generate nightmares and issues with being alone down the line.

Here's how the girl explained it to me: The guy, who fit the description of the guy who was in the study room I was in before I arrived (I had to kick him out because he didn't sign out the room), knocked on her door and asked for change for a dollar. She proceeded to look for the money when he came into the small room (about five feet by eight feet), turned the lights off, pulled a knife, and demanded her money and anything else of value. She ended up giving him her laptop (you could tell it was prized and done probably with some hesitation), cellphone, and cash. He told her to turn around before he opened the door, then he left.

After that, she came to my study room, where I was tutoring, and just fell apart.

You want to think that you can be of some help in cases like this, times when you are called upon in emergencies and stressful circumstances, to truly provide assistance. I was able to help the girl communicate to the librarians to call 911 after explaining what had happened. But the poor kid. She was not just in shock from having a knife pulled on her (the last thing she probably thought would happen while studying for Organic Chemistry - I saw the books and chemical formulas spread across her desk), but then she lost her personal possessions.

In the end, I was of minimal help - the case was in the police's hands within 10 minutes. As they began to question her, I felt that even they were of limited help at that point. Ten minutes had passed; the crook was miles away. The damage was done. Today will be a horrible memory for her for a long time.

I have to say, as a witness to the aftermath, both library staff and police seemed to respond slowly. Perhaps it was me, being caught up in what had happened, my adrenaline was certainly flowing, but the librarians barely moved after she explained what happened. They did little to console the girl. Police talked with the girl for a while, but they spent more time walking around the library, slowly, aimlessly, than anything else. I understand they thought the guy could have still been in the library, but a witness who saw the guy leaving contradicted that. For half an hour, the cops walked around, seemingly doing nothing. Perhaps they felt useless, too.

I would have expected a little more assertion on their part. A young girl was robbed at knifepoint in the center of Glastonbury in the library! Are you kidding me!

I checked in with the girl a couple of times, asking her if she needed anything, or if I could do anything for her - her parents couldn't be reached when she first tried to call them - but I knew when I asked that, as essentially a complete stranger, my efforts to help were exhausted. She didn't come to know my name; I didn't know hers. I was just the first person she talked to after being threatened with a knife. It was the strange sort of life experience where you feel personally involved with someone one minute, and then you'll probably never interact with them again.

A Baby Comes to Life

Unbelievable. Right out of the now-defunct Weekly World News. I guess this kind of thing can happen in Paraguay.

Click this: http://www.comcast.net/video/-dead-baby-awakens-before-funeral/1209671960/Comcast/1208254231

What's a Big City Without a Newspaper?

"Newspapers remain the primary source of news-gathering in America. And unlike so many Internet “sites,” they are firmly grounded in a geographical place. To read a newspaper is to know what town you’re in."

Michael Sokolove of the New York Times Magazine investigates the demise of newspaper journalism by focusing on Philadelphia, where the Inquirer and Daily News remain in one of a few cities with two surviving papers.

Read the article here.

Food - literally - for thought

Here's something to chew on.

Researchers have recently found that people may be able to live longer by doing two things - significantly restricting the calories they eat or by being slightly overweight.

If it seems like these contradict one another, I guess that's because they do.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper reported recently that "researchers there have confirmed a popular 2005 study that found that slightly overweight people tend to live longer than normal-weight people, and far longer than the obese or overly skinny.

But before you grab the Haagen-Dazs, be warned: No one knows why this happens, and it doesn't necessarily mean bigger is better."


At the same time, the New York Times reported that "a long-awaited study of aging in rhesus monkeys suggests, with some reservations, that people could in principle fend off the usual diseases of old age and considerably extend their life span by following a special diet.

Known as caloric restriction, the diet has all the normal healthy ingredients but contains 30 percent fewer calories than usual. Mice kept on such a diet from birth have long been known to live up to 40 percent longer than comparison mice fed normally."

Of course, the latter story is pretty speculative. In other words, I wouldn't start starving yourself just yet. Besides, scientists are attempting to see if the "healthy" ingredient in red wine, reservatrol, may be able to help people eat normally AND live longer.

Personally, eating a little too much and living longer sounds good to me. I've heard that people on starvation-type diets tend to be depressed.

On Becoming "Comfortably Numb"

NORTH CONWAY, NH - I'm blogging on location here, a first for me (I don't get out much), although I suppose I've had the opportunity. Toting the laptop around while staying overnight hasn't been necessary, and even if it were, I wouldn't have the time, anyway.

This time, however, I knew we'd have wireless access, and so the laptop came along.

Anyway, traveling is not the theme of this post, although traveling has helped me to characterize my thoughts. I think travel can do that. If you stay in one place, it limits your perspective about a lot of things.

Today, being here, in North Conway, NH, I was able to articulate something about being a parent that I hadn't previously.

So we're at a park. Actually, let me backtrack. We're here to go to Storyland, a kiddie amusement park. We arrived in North Conway today, after a five-plus hour ride. We found a hotel and after checking in, went right out to the main street where there are assorted tourist trap shops selling tshirts, hats, copper plated antiques, and a "five and dime" store.

We eventually got to the park in the center of town, where there are two playscapes and a water fountain feature that kids run through. By default, I'm with my daughter, who is almost 2, and my wife is with our son, who is 4. While they're sliding down slides and running around the place at a speed that's excessively dangerous to themselves and others, I notice a guy holding a stuffed animal. He was holding it for his daughter, presumably, and he looked kind of funny, being an adult and holding this stuffed animal in public.

Then I thought how truly ridiculous this was. What's happened to this guy? At one time, he may have been independent and had something going for him. Now, he's been reduced to a stuffed animal carrier.

Just when I'm thinking I'm on to something here, about to articulate a theory about dads who become losers, my mind shifts back to 15 minutes earlier, when I was holding my daughter's stuffed dog in a store. For some reason, when I saw another guy doing that, I got all judgmental. But along the same street, I did the same thing.

Move forward a half hour and my daughter needs a diaper change. Without thinking very much about it, I tell her to lay on the grass where I proceed to change her diaper. I had not decided whether I'd do this. It was out of habit.

What has happened to me?

To borrow the title from a Pink Floyd song, I've become comfortably numb.

Before kids, I would have resisted the idea of carrying their stuffed animals, changing them in public, etc. But now these things happen automatically. I'm their parent. There isn't an option. I may look really stupid, sometimes, and a lot of other parents do, too. But this is how parents look. And when you begin to adopt this mentality, you grow, in effect, comfortably numb.

The change from single person to married person is significant. But the change to parenthood is even greater. Sleeping uninterruptedly, going out to a leisurely dinner, and relaxing are part of history.

You can resist this and fight it, or pretend it's not happening. But I guess another option is to be comfortably numb - being aware of it, but not overthinking it. Because if you do, things could turn ugly. I know. From time to time, this has happened. This is why it becomes necessary to put the kids in front of the TV, at least for a little while, to give yourself a break. It is unrealistic to not use the TV for this purpose when kids are between 2 and 4.

Being comfortably numb toward the challenges and responsibilities of parenthood is not a bad thing. It's an acknowledgment of a parent's limitations. Adults and toddlers and adults and 4 year olds don't think or act the same way. They don't speak the same language, so to speak. Nor should they.

This is why it's best, when a parent feels as if they are more or less losing it, to adopt a more loose mentality, and become comfortably numb.

10 Standards to Assess Your Fitness Level

Yeah, these seem to be a little intense. But maybe it's because I'd fail most of them.

Life lessons from obituary writer

A newspaper's obituary writer is one of the newsroom's least honorable positions - although the job can be incredibly interesting, particularly if you like to learn about people's life stories. There are all sorts of nuggets to learn - the clubs and organizations they were in, the little things they did with their families, their jobs.

The position is rather morbid, though, and the day to day duties get mundane. Unless someone really important dies, it's another day sorting through the most prominent of ordinary people and bringing them "to life" - well, sort of.

The Boston Globe's obit writer wrote these 6 life lessons from his time on the job. Some simple ideas, but worth reading.