Nov. 13, 2007: Drive-By Newspaper

Story By Joe Zlomek

A moderate rain that fell on Sanatoga PA most of the previous night had stopped, but the village's pavements and sidewalks still glistened with wetness. Streetlights lining Pleasantview Road burned with a dull intensity in the 5:30 a.m. darkness, their glow diffused by moisture that saturated the air.

Down Pleasantview came the pedestrian, headed toward Ridge Pike and his morning appointment with a public bus that would carry him to work. On this, like other mornings, the pedestrian passed time during his walk by counting cars headed the same way he was, south and east, toward Philadelphia. At 5 a.m. that traffic was negligible, but within 30 minutes it usually built to a steady stream as suburban commuters surged toward city jobs.

Forty-one, 42, 43 ... the pedestrian mentally ticked off vehicles as they whooshed past. Absorbed in the count, he ignored entirely the lone car being driven in the opposite direction, up the hill and deliberately slow. It crawled along until there was a break in traffic in the other lane. Then, suddenly, an arm appeared in the open window on the driver's side, followed by a long, barrel-shaped object. There was a sharp, crack! sound near the pedestrian's feet, and the lone car sped away.

The pedestrian sensed, rather than saw, what happened as it happened. He didn't react until the sound reverberated only a yard or two in front of him. He jumped back, shouted "Jesus Christ!" aloud, and immediately thought: "drive-by shooting."

It wasn't.

The barrel-shaped object was not a rifle but a newspaper -- a copy of that day's (Nov. 13, 2007) Philadelphia Inquirer -- tightly wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve to keep it dry. The arm that had thrown it belonged to a paper carrier making his rounds, and the scary, sharp crack had been the sound of the tossed paper heavily hitting the apron of a wet driveway. Nothing more sinister.

The pedestrian tried to shake off feelings of fear and worry, and the nagging notion that he should have paid more attention to his surroundings. Besides that, he told himself, he had lost count.

He hurried on to his bus.