A Sad Homecoming at Columbine High

Exactly six weeks after the halls of Columbine High echoed with screams, it was time for the mundanities of survival as students and teachers alike took a day out of summer Tuesday to pick up the things they had left behind. Backpacks, long since checked for pipe bombs, still lay in front of lockers; car keys still sat in desk drawers. Almost everyone had something to come back for, and all of them had something to see and remember: the closet where they had hidden, the classroom where they had huddled and prayed, the parking lot where it all began. The library where it ended.

"The library is still considered a crime scene," said Jefferson County Public Schools spokesman Rick Kaufman. The personal items found in the library, as well as those recovered from the commons area outside the cafeteria, have been moved to the auditorium for retrieval -- except for the items still being held as evidence in a case that police seem reluctant to close. All day Tuesday, nearly 2,000 students and teachers, broken up into groups of 15, were to enter Columbine High and leave again. It was the day after Memorial Day, and life was going on.