Jackson is not a metropolis, let’s be clear.

But it has some features (the state prison, for example) that sometimes cast a big-city shadow over our smaller-scale city.

Monday, a taxi-driver was stabbed within a mile radius of where I live and work.

I try to hold onto the headline–to realize it is not just a statistic about a random stranger, but to acknowledge this is a fellow citizen, someone’s son, perhaps someone’s father, someone’s brother.

What gets me too is that according to Starlite Cab Co. owner Gordon Cannon, attacks like this increase during rough economic times. ”It seems to be that the robbing and assaulting of drivers is more common now than it ever has been,” he told the Jackson Citizen patriot.

The mother of the driver’s words are telling too.

“I feel bad for people thinking they have to do this to get by,” the taxi driver’s mother, Jolene Walker said. “It’s pitiful that (they) had to do this and then hurt him.”

It reminds me, in a sad sort-of ironic way, of jokes comedians are always telling “you know (fill in the blank) if…”

You know you’re in a depression when…the mother of the attacked feels badly for the people who needed money so desperately they attacked her son.