On Fridays I read to the fourth grade class at Essex Elementary here in Essex, Connecticut. This past Friday, 12/14/2012, would leave a mark on all of us. The school is less than a 10-minute drive from our home. I arrived there early at 12:35 and sat for a moment in the car. The radio was on and the program was interrupted by a distraught newscaster relaying information on an unsubstantiated story about a shooting at a school in Newtown. The newscaster’s tone left no doubt about the severity of the situation. “We have been told to expect the worst!!” At this point only sketchy details of a shooting at Sandy Hook School had been broadcast.
I turned off the car, walked to the elementary school building and pressed the front door buzzer. I waited for the click that would let me in. No click! A few minutes later, Gwen, one of the office staff appeared and opened the door. I asked her if she knew about Sandy Hook. She had heard, and that was why I was not clicked in. She put a finger to her mouth and whispered, “Shh, please don’t talk about it in front of the kids.”
I made my way to the classroom. The teacher was alone waiting for the class to return from lunch. She had not heard about the news from Newtown. I filled her in on what little I knew. Back they came from the cafeteria, happy and buzzing.
Just prior to starting to read, it hit me!
As I was about to leave the house, the last email I received was from a former Navy shipmate. It was a picture of a white T-shirt inscribed with a note from a concerned student:
“Dear God, why do you allow so much violence in our schools?”
Under it was God’s reply, “Dear Concerned Student, I’m not allowed in schools,” signed God!
I was puzzled when I received the email, now I understood.
As I read, I looked up at the happy innocent faces of these wonderful young boys and girls. I was shaken by the thought that a few miles away something terrible had occurred, the dimensions of which had yet to be reported. My time was up. As I was leaving, the teacher invited me to their Christmas party. The kids said, “Thank you Mr. Rider! “See you next week, Mr. Rider!”
With their voices still ringing in my ears and the fresh images of their lively faces, I turned on the car radio to hear the dreadful details that had just been released. Why? Why? Why? The message of my shipmate’s email began to give me some of the answers.
By the end of the school day, the Sandy Hook story was all over TV. The parents of kids everywhere are now coping with trying to explain the inexplicable, trying to answer questions with no answers and calming fears that were not there when they went to school Friday morning.
When my four grandchildren appeared from the bus, they must have wondered why Poppy gave them an extra long hug!!
Red Rider's Ramblings: Rants, reminiscences and repartee from a 91+ year-old rookie writer 
Clearly the Sandy Hook tragedy is a very loud wake-up call to us Americans. We have a culture of violence, too many guns, and too little in the way of help for those with adverse mental conditions. We should do something about this situation through our existing governmental processes. What we shouldn’t do is bring God into the discussion. Allowing prayer in the schools would have done nothing to prevent this slaughter. And, in western Kentucky where I live, the ‘god’ who would be brought into the classroom would bring creationism, anti-gay, anti-women sentiments, and a rejection of any faith other than the ‘official’ one, including many Christian denominations. Let’s handle the matter ourselves, leave God out of it.
I don’t mean that God’s love and his powers of healing should not be part of the grieving process. It must be part of it but let’s keep faith matters where they belong, as personal matters not matters of the government.