I'll never forget hearing the first whisperings of something amiss in State College, PA, over a year ago, when the Harrisburg Patriot-News reported that a grand jury had been convened to look into allegations that Jerry Sandusky, onetime assistant football coach at Penn State, had indecently assaulted a teenage boy.

I'll never forget the first squirms of that uncomfortable coiling in my gut that always accompanies the phrase "indecent assault." Particularly on a child. Especially by an adult upon whom near godlike status had been conferred.

But the story faded away, too quickly and too easily, popping up only once and again, and really only if I remembered to go looking for it.

I'll never forget the squirms getting worse, tighter, nastier as time kept ticking by. Nothing good could come of an investigation with legs like these, with leaked allegations dribbling out day by day, sometimes hour by hour.

I'll never forget the pieces falling into place, the picture that began to emerge, as a seemingly unstoppable avalanche of allegations continued to tear out of central Pennsylvania, as a nation's eyes were slowly, inexorably pulled, then focused, then glued to just what sort of hell was being uncovered in Happy Valley.

But even then, people somehow seemed oblivious, or, worse, willfully blinded to the horror that was resolving itself before us all. A neighbor, in passing, asked what I thought of "all that silliness" going on in State College; why was the government investigating some good-old-fashioned "horseplay" going on in the locker rooms and showers of Penn State. Boys will be boys, right?

I'll never forget reading, in horror and rage, the eventual indictment released by that original grand jury in November of last year. The rumors, the news reports, that had built over the weeks and months couldn't have adequately prepared anyone for what the grand jury had found, and recommended, that Sandusky, Joe Paterno's onetime second-in-command, and founder of The Second Mile, a nonprofit foundation committed "to helping young people achieve their potential as individuals and as community members", be charged with 52 counts of child molestation, dating from 1994 to 2009.

I'll never forget the trial, earlier this month, of Jerry Sandusky on all 52 of those recommended charges of sexual assault against children. The total number of charges was eventually dropped to 48. The number of charges on which Sandusky was found guilty eventually totaled 45. According to various news reports, the maximum sentence faced by Sandusky is 442 years; the minimum is 60.

No matter. For a man of Sandusky's age, even half the minimum amounts to a life sentence.

But even now, whispers have started that Sandusky's defense team tried to resign from the case on the grounds that the judge had set a calendar far too fast for a case of this magnitude. The judge refused, both the motion to resign and the motion to postpone the trial, thereby establishing at least two complaints to be brought up on the inevitable appeal.

No matter. Jerry Sandusky has been found guilty by a jury of his peers, and in short order. Justice, for once, was swift, and righteous.

Maybe I'd feel differently if Sandusky was a family member, my father let's say. But maybe I wouldn't. One of the people who came forward too late to testify this time around, but surely emboldened by the courage of others, was one of Sandusky's six adopted children, a son, who was prepared to testify, under oath, that he as well was a victim of Sandusky depravations.

My son is only three, hasn't even begun to complain of monsters in his closet, or under his bed, or outside his window. But he will.

And I, for one, won't be able to tell him there's no such thing as monsters. Not now. Not ever.

I'll have to tell him there are monsters, there are. And that worse, they don't hide under the bed, or in the closet, or outside the window. They hide in plain sight. Where everybody can see them. Where everybody can know them. And touch them and feel them and smell them. Out in the open. In the light, smiling and laughing and playing and teaching and coaching and praying and parenting.

All the better to see you. All the better find you. All the better to catch you.

All this, I'll have to tell my son.

But I'll also tell my son, and this is important, so important, I'll have to make him understand he can always tell me anything, no matter how bad or how scary or how wrong it may feel, and that I'll always believe him and trust him and love him. That I'll always be there for him, no matter what.

Because that's the only way to keep the monsters at bay, to drive them back when they come too close.

Belief. And trust. And love.

I'll never forget.

Nor should you.