I was a columnist for the student newspaper and had been arguing passionately for the legalization of marijuana. Had my advocacy brought me the wrong kind of attention?

When I showed up at the police station, I was ready to talk about free speech and the absence (I hoped) of evidence that I had done anything illegal. But I didn’t need my prepared speech. Instead the chief asked when I’d last been to the Grinnell State Bank.

A few months earlier, the bank had been robbed, and a teller and her husband had been kidnapped and murdered. For sleepy Grinnell, it was the crime of the century.

I’d had nothing to do with it, of course. I laughed and said, “I was afraid you were going to ask me about marijuana!”

I’d been worried I might be in real trouble.

Nathaniel Borenstein
Greenbush, Michigan