I made my way to The Esplanade and walked along the Charles River and after ambling on the Arthur Fiedler foot bridge which leads to Beacon Street, I decided to walk along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, something I have done in quite some time.
Things were very nice, shady and downright serene until I came across something amiss on a park bench.
Like many Americans, I have developed a heightened awareness of my surroundings post 9/11. Over the years, I've seen unattended bags. I've done my best to balance my heightened awareness with letting things play out. Simply put, I stick around for a few minutes to see if anyone has claimed the bag and someone invariably does.
That is until today.
Fortunately, there was a Boston PD van a block away. Evidently there was a fender bender and the officer was preoccupied with that task. Nevertheless, I thought I would tell him what I saw. When I did he said to me, "You're like the tenth person to have told me that."
On one hand, I was gratified that I wasn't the only one who thought something was amiss and felt the need to alert the authorities. Of course, this was only a few blocks away from where two backpacks of explosives were detonated during the Boston Marathon nearly three and a half years ago. Those memories won't fade anytime soon.
On the other hand, the officer seemed annoyed with me. How can I assume that others would have told him about the bag? Would he have preferred that I keep my mouth shut? One T-shirt vendor in New York City wasn't prepared to make such an assumption when he something amiss with smoke coming out of a SUV in May 2010. If not for Lance Orton, New York City would have a memorial at Times Square.
Now 99 times out of 100, there is probably nothing sinister about that bag. But it only takes that one time and I wasn't prepared to take that chance. Especially not on this day.
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