CBS News reports,

A South Carolina sheriff is praising a man with a concealed weapons permit who helped disarm someone who kicked in the door of a church armed with a shotgun.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright made national news last year when he urged all women in his county to get a permit to carry a gun after a woman was raped in a park. He said Sunday’s incident shows how citizens carrying a legal weapon can stop crimes and prevent bloodshed.

Jesse Gates had already been to the Southside Freewill Baptist Church in Boiling Springs once Sunday morning, so the pastor’s grandson was keeping his eye on the parking lot when he saw Gates come back, this time taking a shotgun out of his trunk, Wright said.

“They locked the door and they were calling 911 at the time. He didn’t draw his weapon or make any move or action toward this gentleman until he kicked the door open and forced the issue,” Wright said.

After Gates kicked in the door, the pistol pointed at him distracted him enough that the pastor was able to grab the shotgun. Members of the church kept him down until deputies arrived, Wright said.

Seth Sawyers ’99, history, and adjunct faculty in English, has a new essay in the online literary magazine The Millions.

This essay, which is a chapter is from his recently completed memoir about growing up in the hills of western Maryland, is entitled “Baseball, Finally.”  It appeared on the website on April 4.

 “….I can still feel the rhythm of the infield drill. I did thousands of them, the movements deep inside me like the steps of a dance, like the bass lines to certain Beatles’ songs.I loved turning double plays, taking the throw from third or from short, quickly hopping backward off the bag and, in the same motion, flinging a sidearm shot to first. It was the only dance I was ever any good at,” he writes.

“…we would never again, it turns out, be quite so free, quite as on the edge of something as beautiful and deep, and strange. Way out ahead of us was the unknowable everything, but just within reach was seven innings of baseball, a game we knew better than maybe anything else in the world.”

In today’s U.S. News article “Why Our Homes Make Us Happy,” UMBC professor Robert Rubinstein (Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology) argues that having a connection to home is important for our well-being throughout the life course and particularly in later life. “We live in a society that is concerned with freedom,” Rubinstein says. He argues “being able to make a space for yourself, and having a central place from which to look out at the world” is central to personal development in American culture, which highly values independence, autonomy and control.

Rubinstein offered particular insight for the meaning of home among older adults. He suggests transitioning to a new environment “can be very difficult for older people who have lived in a place for 40 or 50 years” and that they might benefit from counseling before moving into a smaller home or an assisted care facility.

gch:

If you missed our NBC takeover on Tuesday check out our performances of “Ass Back Home” from The Voice and “The Fighter” from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno right here!