2002-10-24 2:59 p.m. It's somewhat surreal to me to see Myersville get any kind of national attention. Myersville isn't Montgomery, Alabama or Tacoma, Washington. Myersville isn't Fredericksburg or Richmond and certainly isn't anything like Montgomery County. Things don't happen in Myersville. And that's ok. No one really wants much to happen. Tucked up in the hills of Western Maryland, it's the type of place that's content to watch the outside world; not get caught up in the mad rush of things. I should know, I used to live there. After my folks divorced and my mom remarried, we moved in with my stepfather in a spectacular house that sat up on a hill and was miles from anywhere of interest. We didn't care. Our back yard looked out on South Mountain, our front on Braddock Moutain, we couldn't even see our closest neighbor, and we had six acres of land and 360 degrees of sky and the world was ours. My sister and I went to school in Hagerstown and the folks worked in Frederick, but we always knew that Myersville was where we could go to get away - to feel safe. To be home. The folks moved out while I was in college, but if they hadn't - and if I was still living at home - the sniper would have been arrested no more than five miles from their house. I know that rest stop. I've been to that rest stop. I can picture with startling clarity the parking lot in which John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo were arrested. I wonder if I'll ever look at that part of the state the same way. Even after I left, Myersville to me was some sort of threshold. If I was driving out to Hagerstown to visit Dad, I never really felt separated from the DC/Baltimore claustrophobia until I passed route 17, Myersville's exit off of I-70. After that, I felt detached (but in a good way). As if the worries and stresses of city living couldn't reach me that far out. Now though, now I'll be reminded that there are no refuges. Evil and fear can be found wherever someone draws breath. "Your children are not safe anywhere. At any time." Indeed we're not. downtown----uptown leave me a note, fool!

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