If you visualize Greenfield with no police you will see what you are predisposed to see. I see the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s. Families trying to keep their children away from that fighting sent them to Massachusetts boarding schools where they became my friends at Bement and at Northfield Mount Hermon.
One such student once received news from Beirut that somebody in that city had attacked his sister. The family was meeting to decide what to do. There were no police. It was not safe to take retribution. It was not safe to let it pass. His older brothers still in the Middle East prepared to undertake a dangerous violent enterprise. He was very afraid. His real fear made me afraid. I never forgot it. Brothers, sisters, everyone in danger. That is what I see.
Ian Stone
Northampton