Tonight, the dog and I walked downtown. It should have been a quiet walk, just footsteps echoing along dark streets. Instead, helicopters throbbed overhead, police cars flashed, television cameras and reporters gathered. The Kirkwood City Hall so many will see on the morning news is just a block from the farmers market where I buy so many of the vegetables you see on this site. The five people who were murdered there tonight, the two police officers, the three city employees, the two who were injured, the mayor critically -- and the gunman, too -- they and their families, they're all from my small town. But aren't we all from some small town, even those in cities where streets and neighborhoods and buildings are the communities in which we live our lives. Countless times I've sobbed to hear of lives lost to suicide bombers, to natural calamities, to inexpressible tragedies. Tonight I spoke with a man from Lebanon who knows that in the morning, his parents will newly worr