Its a Not so Brave New World

I feel that way too. If someone is stranded on the side of the road, you can't even stop and help them out. I mean, they could be the mad slasher or something. It's scary that people are impersonating police to get you to pull over so they can get you that way.

Has the world changed that much or are we just more paranoid?

More paranoid.

My great - great grandmother fed Jesse James and his gang at her dining room table. They were very polite and gracious. (and, generous!) She didn't know until later when the posse came through, who she had fed.

My grandparents traveled Ireland in the early eighties and stopped at homes along the countryside. They were welcomed and fed by total strangers.

A couple of weeks ago, while in DC area, a co-worker had a knock at his apartment door at 1 AM. The guy outside said he was looking for Juan, and wouldn't go away. My co-worker, a large, Harley riding middle aged man, threw open the door, grabbed him and dragged him inside and proceeded to knock him out with a couple of punches. The cops, who had been lookin' for this guy as well as his "friend" Juan, thanked my co-worker.

Yeah, it sucks.

I am not sure if there are more crazies out there, or whether it is better reporting by the media. I remember a story where a woman had a flat tire, and was on the side of the road. A man stopped, and offered to help. He then raped the woman.

I think that one needs to be more careful nowadays. In an emergency, you can still do a good deed. If you see someone in trouble, use your cell phone to call the police, but don't get involved yourself.

My question to jpinMilwaukee - Why did you even open the door?

Because I was bigger than him??

I don't know really. There was part of me that said not to open the door, but I did anyway. Maybe I just don't like living in fear and distrust.



On a sort of related note, a long time ago my sister, her boyfriend and I were driving down to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale to visit some friends. It was around a 6 hour drive from where we lived. Around 4 hours into the drive, the alternator in my car blew and we were stranded on the side of route 57 in mid January around 10 at night. The only thing we could think to do was bundle up and start walking. I think we counted around 140 cars before one pulled over to see if we needed help.

It was a couple. The woman just got off of work and the husband was picking her up and driving home. They stopped because she said if it was her kids she would want somebody to stop for them. Instead of just dropping us off at the next gas station, they drove to their house so the wife could go to bed and then the husband drove another 45 minutes (each way) out of his way to deliver us safely at our friends front door. I have never been so thankful for the kindness of strangers.

I try to think like the lady did (If it were her kids she would want someone to stop for them), but it sure is difficult. I think I would stop more if I were single and unmarried, but half of the time I think what could happen to my wife if the stranger on the side of the road isn't of good intentions. I don't mind risking myself but I would never risk her safety so I often just drive by.

Just remember. All those horror stories make the news.

The countless acts of kindness do not.

Around here the guy usually says his wife has been rushed to the hospital by ambulance to give birth. He wasn't allowed to ride in the ambulance, and his car's out of gas. Can I spare a couple of bucks? No? Okay, can the guy use my phone?

I chased a guy out of my mother's house who had given her that story. She had her back turned, looking for the phone book, and he had his hand on her purse when I walked into the room.

The same guy had tried the same scam on me when I was there alone a couple years before. I didn't open the door, but my sweet mother was a trusting soul who believed the best of everyone...

Yeah, usually if someone's out of gas, they're lying. That's a common line.

You're right about that, Gargamel, and that is kind of what pisses me off. Not the fact that you are right, but the fact that most people, I think, are good honest citezens. The trouble is you can't tell the difference and those few bad apples ruin it for the rest.

Was the gun he had in his pocket bigger than you?

I refuse to feel guilty for listening to my gut. If this guy knocked on my door, I would have, through a crack in the window, told him I'd be glad to dial 911 for him.

I don't think I'm paranoid, but back in the day, you didn't meet as many strangers in life, you may never have gone more than 50 miles from your home in your lifetime.

Now the "crazies" can get anywhere they want.

Also, naturally a certain percentage of the population can be considered a danger, with a higher population, more dangerous people are out there. Since they can travel easily, they can endanger more people.

Plus add into the naturally dangerous population all the people addicted to drugs that didn't even exist a generation ago.

Or con artists....used to be they'd come to your town and sell a few bibles.

Now, they can contact hundreds and steal millions.

Paranoid? No.
Aware? Yes.

i think I was probably bigger than the gun... but I get your point. Interesting idea about the bad people being able to travel more. I hadn't really thought of it like that.

The whole crazy psycho ax murderer scenario made me think of this:

Bella, I don't know where those quotes came from but I love 'em!

...haggis ain't bad, given the alternatives...

Are you on the marijuana today bella?

WTF was that all about?

You've never seen So I Married an Ax Murderer?????????

A sort of weird scenario happened to me last winter and, looking back on it, I was bloody silly, seeing what happens nowadays.

My wife was writing Xmas cards at about 8pm on a Saturday night. She wanted to get them all into the envelopes, stamped up and in the post box so that she could tick them off her list of xmas jobs. No stamps.

I offered to drive up to our local shops to buy some, and promptly went out of the door and over to my car in the driveway.
A young girl of about 16?, possibly 17 walked by, crying her eyes out. I asked her if she was OK and she replied in broken English (she turned out to be Spanish) that she was totally lost and was trying to make her way to the tube station, in order to get back to South London.

The tube station is about a mile further on from the shops, so without thinking, I told her to hop in and I would give her a lift.
(What I SHOULD have done, looking back, was to get my wife to the door and either get her to accompany us, or take the kid in for a hot drink and then make the trip once she was OK)

She got in and I drove the journey to the tube in about five minutes. She told me that she was visiting her new boyfriend at his family home and they didn't offer to walk her to the tube, or give her a return lift home (bastards). She turned the wrong way at the end of his road, and had spent an hour walking around the night time streets of our estate, trying to find some road signs to tell her where she was.

Anyway, she had cheered up by the time we got to the tube, assured me she would be OK, as she knew the tube system very well and travelled it regularly, and said goodbye.

Now the problem starts.

To get back home, I had to go round a bloody great one way system which took me past all the big car parks that were adjacent to a very popular high street.
Shop closing time.......plus mega Xmas shopping.....meant that I was basically stuck in a stationary traffic jam for about 45 minutes, and by the time I got home, the stamp shop had closed and I had been missing for an hour.

My wife was wondering what had happened, but soon cheered up when she heard of my reward of a John Cleese style rage in a queue of shoppers, after having done the knight in shining armour bit.

On a serious note...say something had happened to that girl. Who would be a prime suspect? Moi, that's who. Missing for an hour. Spotted by neighbours, bundling a crying girl into the car. Wife to detective "Well Officer, he said he was only going out for stamps".

It could have been Shawshank Redemption all over again.

Sad, but I will think twice in future.

I'm glad I did it though.

Your word against hers, LordE... never a good situation.

It is nice that everything worked out alright though, minus the stamos of course.

I sum up impressions of people and decide how far I am prepared to go to help.

I trust my radar quite a bit, and have so far been right to do so, but I am getting less ready to expose myself to risk, sadly.

One of those stories about helping people that takes a bad turn...

Kind of funny..



http://www.startribune.com/467/story/255655.html

The advice at the end of the story..