Anyone Can Be A Stranger
By Gretchen Ash
I can still remember the shirt I was wearing that day. It was a long sleeved turtle neck with stripes in rainbow pastel colors. It was my favorite shirt that winter. Of course, now it was ruined. The entire left sleeve was torn away at the shoulder and the seam was ripped at the neck. I shook and cried as my mother wiped my tears away. I was seven years old and I had just experienced something terrifying…
As a kid growing up in Fremont, CA in the early 70’s, there wasn’t a whole lot to worry about. We lived in a brand new home in a new neighborhood. There were dozens of children my age to play with. My dad was a police officer for the city and there wasn’t a lot of crime. Parents made their kids go outside to play and didn’t worry about them until it was time for dinner.
On that mild winter day, I was playing on the creek trail behind our street with my best friend, my brother and two other neighbor boys. We noticed a group of teenagers underneath a nearby bridge. We affectionately referred to them as the “Creek Rats”. They were a constant fixture there and we knew it was their hiding spot to drink alcohol and smoke pot. The two neighbor boys with us decided to start taunting the teenagers and began to make obscene gestures and call them names. We all laughed and thought it was funny. Not the smartest kids on the block! All of the sudden, one of the teenage boys jumped from behind a nearby bush and began to chase us. I was the youngest and smallest and nearly got trampled by my “friends” scrambling to run past me. I felt a large hand smack my shoulder. The stranger had me by my shirt and it was twisted tightly in his fist. I remember looking towards the other end of the pathway and seeing the four terrified faces who had made it to safety. I looked up at my captor and he said, ‘Come on. You’re going with me.” Now, even at seven, I knew I didn’t want to go back to that bridge with a drunken teenager who had several friends waiting for him. I cried and screamed and dug my heals into the dirt while my brother yelled for the teen to let me go. He must have thought he scared us enough and pushed me away from him while tearing the sleeve from my shirt. He mumbled something like, “Go home and cry to mommy.” That’s precisely what I did.
How many of you talk to your children about strangers and “what if” situations? Strangers were discussed in our home often. I was taught the usual; don’t talk to strangers, don’t take gifts from strangers, and always tell a trusted adult when someone makes you feel uncomfortable. The biggest lesson I was taught, however, was to never let someone put me in a car or take me to another location. Statistically, victims who are abducted and taken to a secondary location, never make it back alive.
A stranger is anyone you or your child does not know well. It can be a man, a woman, or even another child or teen. Tell your child it is okay to say “no” to strangers. When in danger, tell your child to run away, scream, kick and make it hard for a stranger. The more tools you can give your children to protect themselves, the less you will have to worry. I’m quite sure today that the teen who grabbed me just wanted to teach me a lesson. Who knows, he also could have been a monster with bad intentions. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out. (To get more information on child safety, try www.missingkids.com, www.cybertipline.com, or www.ncpc.org and click on ‘parents’.
Leave a Reply