Story Time: 1999 summer

One of my favorite stories to tell people is a story from my early childhood. Thinking back to my old neighborhood makes me bittersweet. I miss how safe everyone felt back then, parents letting kids walk to school without an adult, keeping doors unlocked, just having kids being free. I remember my brother and I would spend our summer running up and down the street stopping at houses and asking for kids to come out and play running up to our next door neighbor Mrs. McCormick. She lived there with her daughter, both were very nice older women. She often would stop us as we walked past her house on our way home to give us one of those icy pops in the thin long plastic tubes. She is now gone, and sometimes I wonder if her daughter is still living in that old house next door.
Anyway, back to the story I was originally going to tell... I was sitting in the front lawn, my brother at a friend's house down the street my father in back yard working on a project, and my mother sitting on the porch swing reading keeping an eye on her daughter. The phone must have rang because she got up and walked into the house, trusting that I would stay in the front lawn. I was a curious kid, often running off to be an explorer. We were told, my brother and I shall never go down to the stop sign without a parent because it was out of sight of our house. Well, being the expert explorer I was, of course I had to wonder off. I looked around making sure my mom was still inside. Got up, brushed off my grass stained knees and headed down the street. I could see the stop sign getting closer and closer with each step I took. Being careful not to break my mothers back by stepping on any sort of crack on the sidewalk I was almost there. Then finally, I was there, I reached the stop sign. I stood there in aw of my accomplishment. Finger tips almost able to grasp the rim of sign if I jumped high enough. Concentrating on what I was doing I hadn't realized a brown van had pulled up next to me. I heard the side door slide open. A young man sat there, there was a young boy in a car seat and I trashy looking tramp of a woman with a ratty old scrunchy in the drivers seat. The young man reached out his hand in a gentle swift motion.
"Hey, why don't you come with us? It'll be fun, tell her, tell her how much fun it will be" he elbowed the boy sitting next to him.
"We have a lot of toys, a whole bunch you know, and we can get more.." he burst out. The man, thinking this offer was something I could turn down reached further to me. I just stood there and starred, this was the exact situation my parents had told me about, little kids getting taken and horrible things done to them.
"NO!" I stamped my foot and threw my fists down the man almost looked frightened. Then I dashed away and could hear the van rush off into the distance. I ran back into my yard my heart pounding out of my chest I thought, well this is it, I'm going to be the first 4 year old to have a heart attack. As I lay in the grass I hoped my mother hadn't seen me leave the yard and thank god she hadn't because I would have not heard the end of that even today. She came outside and smiled as I lay in the grass trying to slow my heart down.
Thinking back at this, I keep wondering what would've happened to me if I had gotten in that car? Because of the little boy that was also in the car, I could've been dragged into a child pornography business or something along the lines of that. I wonder if I would've ever been able to come home. Probably not. Lets be real. Most kids that are taken, never get to make it home. One of the saddest things is to look at the missing child registry for whatever state your in. The dates of when people went missing are crazy! Like my friend Alex and I were looking at the pictures listed and there were kids still listed as missing from 1934.
I don't know, it's just weird and sad to think about. There are a lot of fucked up people out there.

(that was me btw.)

Song of the Day:

John Wayne Gacy Jr. - Sufjan Stevens 

Perfect right?