I saw an article in today's Daily News about a 78-year-old man who not only thwarted a carjacking, put the guy who attempted to carjack his vehicle in the hospital. God forgive me, but my first thought was, "You go, sir! Good job".

I also remembered the story that one of my interpreting classmates shared. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, carjacking suddenly became a big problem in this area. Eventually, the problem was reduced when the laws were changed to make the punishments for carjacking more severe. This story happened right around that time frame, since those were the years we were taking the classes.

In any event, one of our classmates told us that her elderly aunt had stopped a young man from carjacking her. The lady had just removed the Club from her steering wheel when the would-be thief approached her and tried to take the car. She responded by whacking him over the head with the Club, fracturing the guy's skull and landing him in the hospital.

I wasn't too far removed from having dealt with having my apartment broken into, as well as having gone to the ER as a result of a mugging, so my first response was, "GOOD, I'm glad she did it! He deserves it!" My fellow students who were listening to the story agreed with me.

But there was more to the story. My classmate said, with obvious exasperation, "But then she felt bad and baked him COOKIES while he was in the hospital! Can you believe it? I said, 'You're missing the POINT here', but she did it anyway".

I had to laugh. God bless her aunt. She's quicker to forgive than I am, for sure... I'd have been more inclined to swat the guy with the cookie sheet, had I been in her shoes. But that's me. ;o)

I have a feeling that the 78-year-old guy from today's news story won't be baking cookies for his would-be car-thief. IMO, though, anyone who thinks they can target elderly people as crime victims deserves whatever they get when their intended victim fights back.