I Was Almost Kidnapped

I was almost kidnapped when I was five.  It was a cloudy day, not wintertime, but fall season in Detroit. I had a jacket on I know but as I recall that day it was eerily vacant on our street. You see we lived with my grandparents in Delray, a small community inside of Detroit. Everyone knew each other and people were neighborly in a friendly sometimes-nosy way. But that was a good thing because neighbors looked out for one another. I was in our front yard playing with my dolls. My grandfather and mother were at work. I had been given instructions from my Granny not to leave out of our fenced in yard.

I remember that fence as being gray. Maybe I thought it was gray because of what almost happened to me.  I also remembered the sky as being cloudy and gray so maybe that’s why I thought the fence was gray so they could match. In actuality our fence was a green wooden fence.

As a child I had been taught not to talk to strangers and of course never to leave or go somewhere without first asking for permission. That day was no different. I don’t know where he came from; I didn’t see him walk up to our fence either. It was like he was a ghost or something. He just appeared.

I couldn’t describe him very well only that he had on a gray or dark colored hat and that he was a white man. Seeing a white man in Delray wasn’t unusual. Blacks and Whites often lived next door to one another without disturbance. That was the only thing, if a white person was your neighbor and didn’t like their black neighbor, you knew it; it wasn’t a secret.

This day has been etched in my memory for 50 years. I keep thinking what could have happened to me had I gone with the man who promised me ice cream if I would go with him. I told him I had to go check with my grandmother to get permission. I don’t recall him saying okay or anything. But when my grandmother came to the door to see what man was asking me to go get ice cream, he was gone. Vanished like a bad dream. My grandmother was so angry she ran off the porch down to the fence, opened it and looked to the left and to the right but she couldn’t find the mysterious man. He was nowhere to be found.

My grandmother took me inside the house and hugged me and began praying and crying. She told me I did the right thing asking her permission to go with the stranger. I’ll never forget that day; my stomach was doing flips as she frightened me with the ungodly things that could have happened to me. In hindsight as I look over my life I can remember many instances where death or ill will was upon me, yet I escaped it. My mother always taught me to listen to my first mind because it would never lead me wrong. This was a time at 5 years old I listened to that gentle voice inside me. That voice told me to go ask my grandmother for permission. Just think if I had of been enticed with the offer of ice cream and went with this stranger. I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog post today if I had of let my desire for ice cream overrule what I had been taught.