Pancakes and Cookies and Doom

L.A. McMurray • September 1, 2025

Facing Fears: A Morning Journey

walking in the city and my muse

It started with a stare down. I took a few steps into my morning walk on the street where I grew up in Boardman, Ohio. A full-grown, mean-looking German Shepherd stood solid and ready with his eyes zeroed in on my chicken legs. I was not about to start my day challenging that canine and luckily a side street allowed me to exit stage left, praying the whole way that I wouldn’t get attacked from behind.

My morning walks are non-negotiable for me, even when traveling. When I visit my hometown, I keep this routine and walk from my parents house up to the high school or middle school, sometimes around the track and back. Every time, memories flood my mind of when I walked to school and grasshoppers jumped at me, which I still hate to this day, and then wonder why the sidewalks still haven’t been repaired. It has been more than 40 years, and the seismic cracks are still dangerously disjointed. It was a good thing I wore hiking shoes to navigate over tree roots, through gravel, and up and down ramps of broken cement.

Not long after almost become a dog’s breakfast, I wished I had rainboots because it started to sprinkle, light at first, then pour, hard. It was a hard, it was a hard…singing to myself, “a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.” Everything in my head circles back to a Bob Dylan song. Bob provides the soundtrack to my life.

rain walking with an umbrella

Later into my walk, I approached a pack of geese blocking the road like a gang protecting their turf near the track stadium. Several hissed in my direction. Fearing their bold aggression, I chose to walk through the grass to avoid confrontation. Only to look down and see the patch of clovers, with bees buzzing and ready to sting.

If that wasn’t enough, I heard a flock of seagulls squawking from the top of the high school. They were clearly off course and I prayed again, this time that the disoriented fowl wouldn’t fly toward me and peck my eyes out. Oh no, no, no I’ve watched that movie many times before.

I wondered why I felt so much fear and sense of doom while trying to enjoy my walk. Then I remembered the day before when we had an emergency alert on our phone stating to “stay inside and lock your doors.” It was overly vague and highly alarming. The alert sounded the same as an Amber or weather alert, but with minimal information. I immediately looked outside to collect my own facts about the situation. But there was nothing to see or hear. No Armageddon, no mass riot, no explosions, or bomber jets overhead. My son suggested we go back inside, lock the doors and search social media for clues. We found nothing.

Was it a local situation, statewide, national or global emergency? We had no clue. This could be anything. Do we secure ourselves with distilled water, a generator, guns or knives or baseball bats, candles, or whatever items needed for survival in a crisis?

We texted a few other family and friends to see if they received the same cryptic alert. Some did

and some didn’t. That gave us a clue to the geographic location of the situation.


Then we got another sonic buzz that told us, “Don’t call 9-1-1 if you have an emergency.” Is this

a joke? What was happening?! My friend was working at a local gym, and they were told not to

let anyone leave or come into the building. My daughter-in-law who was working at a local

hospital was told there was an active shooter in a shopping center and nearby neighborhood. We

also heard a sheriff had been shot and killed, and it was all unfolding in a neighborhood with

million-dollar homes, behind Walmart.


People were calling 9-1-1 to find out what the emergency was. Can you imagine being a 9-1-1

operator answering thousands of calls with “what’s your emergency?” and the caller saying,

“what’s the emergency?” then the operator asking again, “What’s your emergency?” And the

caller stating more anxiously, “WHAT’s THE EMERGENCY?!” Who knows how many times

that went back and forth.


It helps to have a Fire Chief who lives next door. My son texted his son and found there was a

SWAT stand off about ten minutes away.


Then another alert was issued stating, “An alert went out inadvertently to counties not involved

in the situation.” Okay, there was still an emergency, and where was it all going down?


Then a follow up follow up alert said, “The situation is contained, and you are no longer in

danger.” Or something like that. So, we went about our day.


I think that feeling of emergency and doom lingered with me into the next day on my walk

through Boardman, more than 200 miles away from my home in Cincinnati.


Well, my radar wasn’t too far off. A house that I passed coming and going on my walk, had an

unexpected death at the very time I had walked by. An hour later, the police and coroner arrived.



My editor has accused me of committing early writer crimes. She thinks that I write prose akin to

the children’s books “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” or “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” But, ya

know, sometimes my life is a live version of those books. And, may I remind my editor, those

books are highly successful.

Was it a local situation, statewide, national or global emergency? We had no clue. This could be anything. Do we secure ourselves with distilled water, a generator, guns or knives or baseball bats, candles, or whatever items needed for survival in a crisis?

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