We heard first thing this morning that a busload of baseball players from a small college in Ohio had crashed here in Atlanta, and we were a little alarmed. I thought of my 8:00 freshman composition class half full of baseball players and tried to remember where they were traveling this weekend, but then we heard that the crashed bus was from Bluffton College and we were relieved that the pain this time would not belong to us but to strangers, a selfish feeling to be sure.
Still, it feels awfully close to home. For four years I worked in Bluffton, not at the college itself but for a business where everyone was either an alumnus of Bluffton College or a parent of a student. This morning when we heard about the wreck, I ran through a mental roll call of former colleagues and tried to remember the ages of their children, praying for safety. It was too long ago and I am too far removed from that life, but I know that town and I feel their pain and I wish I could do something to help them. It's good to know my people are safe at home, but not so good to know that the ones who are not safe are my people too.
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