A Year of Blogging: May 25, 2011

May 25 is National Missing Children's Day. It's a sad day, and an even sadder thing that we have to have such a day. It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where children didn't disappear. But we don't. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year. That is 2,000 children a day. It is hard to comprehend that number. Great strides have been made since I was a child. Notably, we now have the Amber Alert system which can relay information electronically in a very quick manner. But if 2,000 children are reported missing each day; there is still so much that needs to be done. I remember as a child, if a suspicious vehicle was spotted in town, a report was sent to school. Growing up in a small town, you knew who should be there and who shouldn't. So if someone spotted a vehicle that shouldn't be there, everyone was alerted. I remember in fourth grade, there had been a string of child abductions in Massachusetts. When I was a kid, child abductors always drove big vans and tried to lure you with candy or puppies. A large van with Massachusetts plates was spotted in our town, and we were told at school that when we got off the bus, we were not to get off the bus unless one of our moms were there. We were also told that everyone was to go home with that mom. We looked out for each other. I was ten when we started staying home after school alone. We got home from school around 4pm, and Mom got home at 4:30. We were told to go home, lock the door, and not to answer the phone or the door. Mom and Dad had a code they used when they called the house. The phone would ring a certain number of times, they would hang up, and call right back. If we didn't hear the code, we weren't to answer the phone. Our neighbors knew we were there. Our Uncle Sid and Aunt Hazel lived next door, and they watched for us to come home. Several of the neighbors did. And we knew, if there were problems, whose houses to go to. If we saw anything suspicious, we were to go to Uncle Sid's house, and call mom to tell her where we were. When we were older and walked to the post office every day, we had certain houses on our route that were our 'safe houses'. My parents made sure we were aware of the situations, but didn't scare us. Grandma tried to scare us. She watched Oprah (back in the day when Oprah went for a lot of sensationalism). She read horrific stories about children being abducted and decapitated, and cut the articles out of the paper for my mom. I often wonder what she would think in today's society- when predators are hiding behind computer screens posing as friends. It is truly frightening. One of my younger cousins (she's a first cousin once removed, her mom is my cousin) is always putting messages on Facebook that shes home alone, and putting her cell phone number on her facebook status. She's a teenager, but teenagers can get snatched or worse just as quickly as a child can. Her mother has friended her on Facebook, so presumably her mother sees what she is saying. Maybe they think it won't happen to them. Bad things always happen to other people. I hope they are right. When my sister was in college, one of her friends went missing. My sister went to one school her freshman year, and then transferred to one closer to home for her second year. One of the girls she was friends with her freshman year also transferred her second year, although she transferred to Albany. She went missing one night in 1998. The state troopers talked to all her friends, including my sister. She's never been found. I think of her when I think of missing people. I think of her family, of all the families. It has to be incredibly hard to pick up and keep going. My heart goes out to all of them.