It's crazy how things like that can affect entire towns, and kids especially. Kids shouldn't have to worry about such things, but many do.
Expanding on my what I wrote in my OP, it wasn't the only time someone tried to grab me.
When I was 11 and living in back in Ohio, my family life was pretty much at rock bottom. After my parents sold the land in Tennessee and moved us back to Ohio, their marriage began to unravel shortly after the move again, and one evening my dad was arrested for domestic violence against my mom. He was handcuffed and removed from the apartment. The next day my brother and I went to school, and when we go back home, everything was removed from our apartment (furniture, TV, kitchen stuff, beds, etc.). The only thing that was left was the beds in me and my brother's room.
Apparently, when my dad got out of jail, he came back and took everything as payback to my mom for calling the police. When my mom called the police over this, they said it was a civil matter and had to be dealt with in family court. I don't think I saw or heard from my dad for 9 months after that happened.
Anyways, things with my mom got really bad. Her mental health declined, and she was either at work or out drinking/doing drugs. My brother and I were pretty much left on our own. We began not having food, and utilities like electricity began being disconnected due to non payment. My mom would usually pay enough to get it turned back on for a bit, but it was a constant cycle of having electricity or it being turned off. The phone service was turned off, and we never had it restored. After 6 months of this or so, we eventually were evicted and moved to the worst of the worst areas of Ohio.
During the period after my dad was arrested and removed, I was riding my bike on the main road through town. I was pretty embarrassed by our situation and basically being without parents, so I spent a lot of time riding my bike everywhere to kill time (no TV/food/power at home sucked). One day I was riding my bike and a car passed me coming from the opposite direct, and kind of slowed down and looked at me weirdly. Of course I noticed it since I was always watching my surroundings, but they went past me. However, a few minutes later I heard a car coming up the road from behind me. I turned my head a little and saw it was the same car. I kept riding my bike, but I listened and watched them out of my peripheral vision. As I did this, I also thought of what I would do if they stopped the car, and planned where I would turn. The car slowly came towards me, and then it swerved towards me and the guy sitting in the passenger seat opened his door and tried to grab me. I immediately turned my back away from them, and went down an embankment avoiding them. The person shut the door, and the car quickly drove off.
The craziest thing about the whole thing was I never told any adults about it. I never called the police (I was afraid they'd take me and my brother to social services when they noticed our living conditions), I never told my mom because she was already in a very bad place, and I had no idea where my dad was. I've always felt extremely guilty about my actions, and wondered if by me not reporting it, someone else ended up getting hurt. But at that age and in the situation I was in, I really just didn't know any better.
Thankfully, that was the last time something like that happened. At 12 I began growing pretty quickly, and was 5'10" by age 13 and I think I was too big to be an easy target.
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