What a world ... what a world....

It does make you think of the Wicked Witch of the West when you contemplate all the wrong going on today.

Its hard to keep upbeat and positive when you consider that you can’t let your kids walk to and from school — think about that cute little bug Somer down in Florida who got snatched up and killed — and when I do see young ones walking to school alone, I want to make them hurry and get into my car.

Think what would happen to me if I did that? I’d get chased down, handcuffed, thrown in jail — all because I was picking up the slack of some other parent.

If you make your kids walk to school, by golly your butt better be out there with them. It just isn’t enough to have them go with a group, or another older child. These days you have got to be on the defensive.

You think your kid is skippin’ off down the street to go play with a friend and next thing you know you’re freakin’ hysterical because they haven’t come home and they are no where to be found.

And these perpetrators who get caught? Why don’t the authorities just ride by and dump them off at a playground where throngs of parents are waiting to mete out justice?

I don’t give a crap who you are or if you have a family member who is sick enough to take advantage of young children. You have no place in this society. Do I believe in wiping pervs off the face of the earth? You’re dang right I do. I don’t give a rat’s about your civil liberties, because you have abused them the minute you cross that line.

Why do the authorities take pity on these people who have no regard for the lives of young children? What makes them think that time in the klink and some psychiatric treatment will rehabilitate them? What about the young life that has been taken at the hands of a sicko? Who will rehabilitate the families? Where do the families go when a monster has crossed into their path and disrupted their lives forever?

Why do these people keep getting let out and put back on the streets? If anything needs to change, it is the laws that should keep these people off the streets and away from our kids forever.

I’m not talking about the underage kids who have consensual sex, I’m talking about adults who prey on young children. How many “sex offenders” were living in this girl’s neck of the woods? So many that her chances of getting snatched up were greater than average. The amount of people they interviewed in her immediate area was just staggering. None of them were deemed “suspicious” by the authorities.

Does that make the parents in that area feel any safer? No, of course it doesn’t. Predators are good at being con artists. They are convincing, they are suave, and they are master manipulators. I would not be surprised to find that at least one of local ‘predators’ was involved somehow.

Hard to imagine the times that I was able to run in and out of school by myself, how I could walk anywhere by myself, and the only admonishment my folks ever doled out was, “Don’t take rides with strangers.”

Well, I did that. Once.

I was about 8 years old and I was walking home from church. Alone. How that happened, I don’t remember because we were seldom ever not at church as a family unit. I may have stayed late after catechism to goof off with friends, I’m not really sure.

It was a hot morning and although the walk wasn’t terribly far, it was terribly hot.

A guy in a red convertible asked if I wanted a ride, and I said, “Yes.” I got in the car and immediately knew the wrath I would face.
He lived around the corner from us, and dropped me off in front of my house.

Upon entering our military housing unit — these were really old units, too — my mother asked, “Where have you been?”

I explained what had delayed me at church for so long.

“How did you get home?”

Uh...uh... “I got a ride...”.

Her hair literally stood on end. My father came bolting out of the kitchen, where he’d been laboring over making an apple pie.

The names of all the saints and something along the lines of repeating JesusMaryandJoseph were thrown in among the cuss words the two of them had mastered over the years.

Pop grabbed my hand and off we went, so he could find the guy who’d given me a ride home.

There he was, out in his little tiny piece of military yard, watering the grass.

He stepped forward and shook Pop’s hand, explained how bad he felt cause he knew I’d probably get in trouble, appreciated that Pop came over to talk to him about it ... but I still wasn’t out of the doghouse.

It was a lesson I would never forget, mainly because I saw how badly it freaked out my folks. Not to mention the verbal beating I took from my siblings.

If you are a parent, you have to be serious about your kids.

Beware, be smart, and be safe.

And it’s Halloween time ... take care.