Yesterday afternoon two things happened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I live.

One, the Dalai Lama made a speech.  Two, a branch of Bank of America was robbed at gunpoint.

Guess which event I was at.  The wrong one.

When my son Ben was five years old, in 1967, he was with me when I went into a bank in Portland, Maine, to cash a check.  After we left the bank and were walking to the car, Ben asked: "Why did that guy in the bank have a gun?"  I hadn't seen it. But I explained to him about Brinks, and Wells-Fargo, and how they move cash from banks, and the guards always stand there with their guns in their hands.  Ben thought that fascinating.

Then we got in the car and I turned on the car radio as we pulled out of our parking space, and the radio was announcing the armed robbery of the bank we had just left.

Now: what do you think the chances are of a person being present at two different bank robberies??

Yet there I was yesterday, at the Bank of America.

If I were going to be present at such an event, I sort of wish I had been ordered to lie on the floor with my hands behind my bank. Then there would be drama, and maybe I would testify at the trial---or asked to look at line-ups and photo displays----and my cogent testimony and observational skills would solve the crime and put bad guys behind bars.

Instead, I was simply shoved hard and ordered to get out of the bank. Which I obediently did.

If I had gone to see the Dalai Lama I might have attained perfect happiness.