Fear of Kidnapping... and Muppets.
There has been a lot of talk about kidnapping recently, with the now-solved Jaycee Dugard case and wondering if Phillip Garrido was also responsible for Michaela Garecht and/or Ilene Misheloff’s disappearances. Just a couple years ago I lived in Antioch, the location of the Garrido home. (No, I didn’t have a secret compound in my backyard.) I was just in New York for a special fall fashion week event, and noticed that the Garrido coverage was just as prominent there as in Northern California.
I recently read an article that mentioned Adam Walsh – the kidnapping case which makes my stomach turn in fear, even 28 years later. My parents only excused me from two activities during my school career – and one was watching the made-for-TV movie about Adam’s abduction. I saw the first installment of it and came home in tears, hence my mom’s excusing me from seeing the rest.
While I was part of the “latch-key” generation, I remember a huge emphasis on Stranger Danger. I ran home from the bus stop each day and was thrilled when the bus driver occasionally added a stop right in front of my house (which was also in front of the other students’ houses, and therefore much better located than the “official” stop several blocks away.) Anytime a car even came down the road, I’d run faster, convinced the car was there to get me.
During grammar school, we watched a show about saying “no” to strangers. The difference from most other such programs was that the educational movie was filmed on our campus. A classmate of mine participated in the film, saying a stong “NO!” to an evil-looking muppet driving a convertible filled with other nefarious creatures. While the use of brightly-colored puppets may have been a tactic to make it entertaining while also “serious” it scared the pants off me. I was worried that these evil muppets apparently tried to kidnap my classmate a block away from my school! While this reaction may have been what the school administrators had hoped, it was beyond suggesting being “careful” of strangers and into the “stony terrified” of anyone territory.
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