On Friday morning, Oct. 5, Cuttermill Road was blocked to pedestrians and traffic for more than three hours because the Nassau County Bomb Squad was investigating a suitcase that had been left unattended on the curb in front of the Great Neck Computer store. Fortunately, the response was rapid and the implosion of the suitcase yielded only a mangled hair blower. In its wake was also left a relieved, but reflective, further sobered community.

A woman, who prefers to remain unnamed, was visiting a friend overnight and left her car parked on Cuttermill Road. She had moved some garments from her back seat to the trunk of her car so that it would not tempt someone to break into the car. The next morning, she was on her way to a meeting and was preoccupied with moving items from the trunk back into the car. Since someone was waiting for her parking spot, she hurried to rearrange her car and drove away, forgetting her suitcase on the curb. She did not discover it missing until she arrived at her meeting and attempted to call her friend in vain. By the time she arrived in Great Neck to retrieve it, Cuttermill was closed off.

In the meantime, Bali Singh, who owns the computer store, arrived at work, spotting the unattended suitcase. In light of the heightened vigilance since the terrorist attacks, Mr. Singh felt uneasy about the situation and called the 6th Precinct, which in turn alerted the Nassau County Bomb Squad. Mr. Singh, a Sikh, with many ties to the community, told the Record that neither he nor his family has experienced any negative responses since Sept. 11 and that he has full confidence that the United States will lead the world toward a "great solution." But he felt it was his duty to be alert to anything out of the ordinary.

Detectives Peter Block, Mike Bartlett and John Dalton had rushed to the scene and by 11:07 a.m. had imploded the contents of the suitcase safely leaving the valise itself intact.

When we interviewed the owner of the bag, she was picking through the shards of plastic in her suitcase and appeared rather shaken from the events of the morning. She said, "It's a very sad commentary on our times that just a month ago someone would have seen the suitcase and just brought it inside to wait for someone to return to claim it ... I feel very bad about this."

About 150 people were milling around just outside the police barricade talking among themselves about the new reality. An Israeli man who has lived in this country for many years said, "It will take about two years for most people to get used to living a life side by side with the threat of terrorism."