The first time I noticed it was at the end of an interview with a shy teenage boy in Baltimore. His name was Cortasz Steele and he was from one of the city’s toughest high schools. He was telling me how much he liked working as a volunteer with other kids at the city’s teen court.
“Everybody needs somebody to talk to. We go through a lot when we go home and then come to teen court ”” and, like, they just needed somebody to talk to,” he said.
When he and I finished talking, I stuck out my hand to shake his, as I usually do. But instead, Steele approached awkwardly, put his arms around my shoulders and gave me a big, warm hug.
Now, that never happened when I covered homeland security!