Random Notes

by Rhonda Westfall

Littleton .

One more name added to a list of places that forms a network of national tragedy.

Two weeks have passed since fear and hate spread through the hallways of Columbine High School in that Colorado town, and still there are more questions than there are answers.

That's as it should be, of course. After all, how do you explain the unexplainable?

Former St. Johns resident Connie Skorna relays that sentiment well in her thought-provoking letter on this opinion page. Questions are on the top of everyone's mind in her Denver neighborhood, just as they are in nearby Littleton. As she says in her letter, people are asking, "How could it happen here?"

Somehow, it can - and it does.

Fond memories of her close-knit hometown led Connie to close her letter with the hopeful thought that the pain and suffering now being experienced in her new home community could not happen back in St. Johns.

How we all wish that were true.

While the ties between family, school, church, and other basic elements of society are undoubtedly strong here - and hopefully would help community members recognize the warning signs of a pending disaster before it happens - our area is not immune to evil.

Long before there was Littleton and other recent sites of school sorrow, another one-word town drew the national spotlight - Bath.

Who could have predicted that one fine day in May 72 years ago, this peaceful community where everyone knew everyone would experience the horror of young children dying in their school classrooms?

Jean Martin's article in this issue on what came to be known as the Bath School Disaster is a stark reminder that all too often, the unthinkable can and does occur in unlikely places.

Bath is a painful history lesson in that regard, as Jean so vividly points out.

As much as we might like to insulate ourselves and our little community from tragic situations, we are obligated to recall the past and face the fact that what seems impossible is part of our own reality.

Evil is real. It does exist.

Littleton can happen here.