A few hours after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary a year and a day ago, my editor called to ask if I'd be able to pack a bag and drive to Connecticut to assist several of the Times Union's corporate sibling papers in their coverage.
With several other TU colleagues already arrived or en route, I spent that Friday evening in the newsroom of the Connecticut Post. I wrote a brief story based on the initial police radio communications from the scene, and edited material that Paul Grondahl, who had stopped in Newtown on his way from Albany, had collected at the spontaneous vigils that had taken place throughout the town.
It's one of the side benefits, or perhaps consolations, of journalism: When terrible things happen, you have something to do — get in the car, work the phone, edit the video, whatever.
The next morning, I pitched a story on the media presence in the town, which was already sizeable and sure to explode over the course of the day.
I drove north to Newtown and swung west to avoid the crush of traffic. I parked and walked a half-mile to the media staging area, which filled the curving parking lot of Treadwell Park a short distance from the school.
It was a beautiful day, cloudless and warm if you stayed out of the shadow of the exhaust-chuffing satellite trucks, which carried personnel from every national network and dozens of local stations, plus crews from Russia, Japan and elsewhere.
At dusk, I walked into a restaurant just off Sandy Hook's tiny main intersection and gingerly asked the manager if I could use the Wi-Fi while eating my burger. Within five minutes, I realized that virtually everyone else in the place was a journalist, hammering away at a laptop or trying to set up live interviews. A large party of adults and children — civilians — were hastily redirected to a dining room upstairs. Back out in the cold just before 6 p.m., both sides of the street were occupied by TV reporters doing live standups, and almost no one else.
Back in the Post's newsroom, I described this scene to Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute. She observed that while the rest of the world wanted to know what was going on in Newtown, the community itself would "retreat into private space, which leaves a city of journalists."
All of this went into the story I filed that night.
Sunday morning, I was glad to hear that a second wave of out-of-town recruits was on its way, and I could head home.
The weather had turned as miserable as the previous day had been gorgeous, with rain turning icy on the drive north. I stopped in Great Barrington, Mass., to get a late breakfast at a cafe just off Route 7. I ate my egg sandwich and several cups of coffee as the late-morning crowd dwindled.
I read the newspapers that previous patrons had left behind and checked by phone for updates — including the preparations for President Barack Obama's visit that evening. Hand-lettered "NO MEDIA" signs were blooming all over Newtown.
Two tables over, a young girl was asking her mother a series of very specific questions about Christmas, which was of course only a week and a half away.
What does Mrs. Santa do on Christmas Eve?, asked the girl, who must have been 6 or 7. Her mother said that Mrs. Santa probably looked after the elves, since they had worked so hard to make so many toys.
Does she stay awake until Santa got back to the North Pole? Well of course, just to make sure he got home safe.
That's when I ran out of things to do.
I was overwhelmed — it's the only word, because I felt it wash over me — with the thought that if not for the events that had taken place almost 48 hours prior, this scene could have been taking place somewhere in Newtown. Perhaps at the restaurant that had instead been overrun with journalists.
I had been in Sandy Hook for maybe six hours, and hadn't gotten close to either the scene of the crime, the victims or the perpetrator. I had watched the watchers, which was a valuable part of the story but not its heart. But I still felt slightly contaminated by the town's shock, as if I was radiating something in proximity to the mother and daughter.
I put on my jacket and walked around Great Barrington for a while. Then I drove home.
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619