‘It can never happen here’ is no more
Jan 31, 2013, 7:57 PM | Updated: 7:57 pm
It was just a day in January called Wednesday.
The thing about this Wednesday that was a vast improvement over the last one is the temperature. A week ago, it was cold and this Wednesday was warm enough that when my wife called to invite me out for a mid-morning cup of coffee, I ordered an iced mocha at the starbucks at 16th Street and Bethany Home, chatted about family business for a while and then it was time to make the routine trip to my office at KTAR, located at 16th Street north of Glendale. It was right around 10:30 a.m.
I didn’t hear the shots.
Perhaps they hadn’t happened yet, but when I got to the radio station, just up the street the alert had already come in. At least three people had been shot in an office building that I just passed. To the best of my knowledge, the incident was over but I called my wife anyway just to make sure she was safe and out of the neighborhood.
While authorities were looking for the gunman, the old cliché entered my mind: “I never thought it could happen here,” as I looked up at a TV monitor showing Gabby Giffords testifying before a Congressional committee on gun control.
I’m Pat McMahon.