Yes, I did keep up with the local news while I was on vacation in Nebraska last week via the internet/phone, but I didn’t log into the national news. My son also gets his news on his phone – we didn’t watch a second of live TV news while we were there.

After returning home, we turned on the TV and one of the first news items was about a man riding a scooter through the streets in New York City and randomly shooting people. Unbelievable. Maybe not, as this world has gone crazy. We never know when and where violence is going to strike next.

The day before leaving for vacation, I began reading my Father’s Day gift, Stephen King’s “Fairy Tale,” a 600-page page-turner that I finished in five days in between rides to attend a family wedding in Kearney, in the hotel, lunches and dinners in Omaha, and before bedtime.

The book helped me escape what is going on in the world for a while – although King never disappoints with the violent plots he inserts in his fictional stories.

Too bad we are not living a “fairy tale,” where most of the time everything works out fine. We are living in a society where daily news reports of violence come across our TVs.

Time to start reading another book to escape reality.