THOUGHTS FROM A SEPTUAGENARIAN. It’s now Easter Sunday and ten days from my 72nd birthday. It’s made me turn my attention away from sports and wonder how religious fanatism has increased exponentially since my formative years in the late 1950s until the early 1970s.

Yes, there were some events during the above-mentioned time where churches and synagogues were attacked. Two of the most prominent were the 1963 bombing of the Alabama African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four young girls and injured 22 others along with the 1960 Gadsden bombing that injured two worshippers at Temple Beth-Israel also in Alabama.

It wasn’t until 1980 when bombings were replaced by gunman who chose to target those attending religious services. That began in June with five fatalities in the Texas city of Daingerfield. Then after a 20 year hiatus in 1999 those events exploded with over 10 and counting with the two most heinous being the 2018 Pennsylvania shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue killing 11 and wounding 6 in Pittsburgh as well as the 2015 assault on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church where 9 were senseless gunned down in the South Carolina city of Charleston.

When I was growing up a house of worship was considered a place of safety where you could practice your religious preference. Sadly, today it’s considered a high-profile target for individuals who want to go down in infamy as a murderer of innocent people of faith.

On this Easter Sunday, my hope and prayer are that we go back to the old days. Let churches be the safe haven they were meant to be and not a way for someone that went on a killing spree to make the national news cycle. Amen.

Book it Dano.