A Word From The Publisher

For this editorial I will be laying aside the editorial "we" voice because the tragedy that occurred last week felt personal, although I did not personally know Jacqueline Vincent or her family.

When I was only a couple of years younger than Jacqueline, I too crossed the electrified railroad tracks. I was a ninth grader at the junior high school and was going to my friend's house after school. My friend lived south of the tracks on Whitehall Boulevard, and although she could have crossed the tracks at the Cherry Valley Avenue trestle, she did not like to pass a group of tough kids who used to hang out there. My friend used to get teased a lot in junior high, so she avoided the underpass.

Instead, we walked west on North Avenue to a place where there was a break in the fencing surrounding the track. There we entered the tracks and crossed over the center electrified rail. Even more risky, I had my bicycle with me and lifted it over the third rail.

Frankly, the whole experience scared the heck out of me, although I'm sure I didn't tell my friend that.

I never crossed over the tracks that way again because the experience was so frightening. But my friend did it every day after school, and I never told anyone about it because I didn't want to get her in trouble.

A couple of months ago I was talking to my own children about risk taking, and how people often don't see the risks in their own behavior. And even if we choose to not take extreme risks, we often don't want to get our risk-taking friends in trouble. This is true when we are teenagers and unfortunately can still be true when we are adults. Anyone who has seen a friend drive himself home after having too much to drink has done it.

The right thing to do is often the hardest thing to do. Since earliest childhood we've heard that we shouldn't be a "tattletale." But that's not the right thing to do. We should wrestle the keys away from friends who are not sober enough to drive. We should insist that our friends don't take horrible risks, because we love them and would miss them terribly. And if they don't listen, we should tell someone, even if it means getting them in trouble.

After I told my children the story about crossing the railroad tracks a couple of months ago I thought about using it in an editorial for the paper, but even after some twenty-five years I didn't want to admit to taking such a scary risk. I didn't want to write yet another preachy editorial (sometimes I just want to get off the soapbox).

I am so very sorry that I didn't put those feelings aside and discuss it in print. If it had gotten a conversation in even one household, it would have been worth it.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher