First Day of the Lamb

Yesterday was one of those first lamb days. When warm winter weather blows in and doesn't feel like a mistake. When it's possible to forget that March is our snowiest month. When you can't help but hope.

Yesterday afternoon some vaguely defined errands, plus guilt about not getting on the bike, got me out the door. Then the 50-degree day steered me west toward Medicine Lake instead of east toward the office.

Instead of east toward murder.

Melvin D. Paul Jr. survived the storm and resulting flood, two days at the crowded Superdome and a bus trip to the Twin Cities with three of his children in tow. But the New Orleans native was shot to death Thursday afternoon while riding in a car that later crashed in north Minneapolis.
- "Shooting of Katrina survivor in Minneapolis not random crime, police say," StarTribune

Paul was shot at 16th and Emerson, a crossroads on my way into the city, at 2:20 p.m., about the time I would have passed by had the day been cooler or my errand more urgent.

It's the third murder over the past year within a block of my regular route. I rode there today. I am not afraid.

We share this world, but it is not the same place for all of us, even on a beautiful day like yesterday.