This essay almost wasn’t written.

Hmm. That opening line sounds a bit scary, so maybe I should phrase it a bit differently. It should get your attention, which, as I used to teach my English students, the first sentence of an essay should do, but it does seem just a little overboard.

As it is, it sounds as though I narrowly escaped death at the hands of a terrorist, escaping his thrown dagger by a mere whisker, and the trauma left me unable to speak, let alone write.

Fortunately, though, I haven’t encountered any terrorists since I last filled this space.

In fact, I haven’t been in any situations that were even remotely dangerous, although I did travel by automobile clear across Wyoming and back, approximately 760 miles. Such a trip does put a guy in danger of sudden death, and, as I once was told, I should assume that every other driver on the road was trying to kill me and drive accordingly. I didn’t do that however; in fact, I didn’t even think about it, probably because my wife drove about half the time, and when I was driving, there wasn’t much traffic.

The size of some of the rocks that had tumbled down from the walls of Wind River Canyon onto the highway was a little disturbing, though.

In any case, it was that trip that nearly eliminated this essay from the literature of the world. It wasn’t a long trip, but it was the reason there was no column from me in the Tribune last week. The purpose of the trip was to visit my in-laws, in particular, Karen’s older sister, who lives in Oregon and doesn’t often get back to Wyoming, came for a school reunion.

Now, don’t get the idea that this trip was in anyway unpleasant. I like my in-laws. They are a varied and generally congenial bunch, so they are fun to be around. There are a few topics of discussion that are best avoided, not surprising since both sides of the nation’s political divide are represented among them, but no fights broke out. In fact, I don’t even recall one exchange of unpleasantries, which is the way it should be in families.

In the end, this visit, which also allowed a stop in Douglas to meet my brother’s three very young grandsons for the first time, and an evening visiting with that brother in Casper, became a vacation from writing this column. You might question my need for a vacation when my work week is usually less than half a day long, and I have to say you have a point. Nevertheless, despite the fact that I packed my computer along so I could write a column, I did not use it for that purpose, which is why my picture and my deathless prose did not appear in the paper last week.

Unfortunately, my mind was a little slow returning to duty, so I was a little slow returning to my normal routines. Part of the reason for that is my recent determination to increase my activity level by taking more walks and extending the length of all the walks I take. This increase, I hope, will increase my ability to get out and do things I like to do, one of which, as many of you know, is taking pictures. To that end, I have acquired a new camera, and as is common these days, the new one has many more buttons and cool features to learn about and try.

As a result, I sort of lost track of time, and a couple of days ago, I suddenly realized that the end of the week was approaching and I had no column to submit for the next one. I would write a pleasant column about a happy week spent visiting family enjoying the sights of nearly 400 miles of my state.

But a terrible news story broke as I was gathering my thoughts before writing. A young man had chosen to violate a South Carolina church by murdering nine people engaged in a prayer meeting. It was a crime admittedly driven by racial hatred and was intended to start a civil war between races, a crime as vicious as any committed by radical Islamists.

So I shifted gears and tried to write a column about this act of domestic terrorism and what it says about our nation.

But I found I didn’t have the words to express what I was feeling. I was too angry that a person could desecrate a church for such an evil purpose and too disgusted that such a thing could happen in my country. Eventually, I gave up. Maybe next week I’ll find the right words, maybe not.

In the meantime, though, I’ll give you this column, the one I almost didn’t write.