When I was 9 or 10 years old I decided I wanted to go visit my grandma. I hopped on my bike resplendent with banana seat, sissy bar and those colorful streamers on the ends of the handlebars and was on my way. I remember peddling as fast as I could down the long country highway as cars whizzed by making my streamers fly. I was tired by the time I cruised into the mobile home park where my grandparents lived. I remember the surprised look on my grandma's face when she opened the door to find me standing on the stoop, sweaty and all alone. She took me into the kitchen and gave me some juice and a snack, then subtly slipped into her bedroom to call my mom and let her know I was there. "Did you know she was coming? She's rode her bike here all by herself!"
My grandparents' place was a little over 6 miles from my house. At the time the trip there mostly followed two long rural roads that connected our larger town to their rural mobile home park located on Redwood Highway (the highway that preceded our current Highway 101 that runs north all the way to the Oregon border.) I had traveled there countless times with my parents in the car so I knew the way by heart.
After my mom was notified of my whereabouts Grandma asked if I wanted a ride home. Now, from an early age it was hammered into me and my brothers that we should never ask for things that weren't offered, and we should never inconvenience people, even if those people were our cherished grandparents who tended to spoil us with abandon. So I said no, I can ride home and thanks for the snack and juice! After another surreptitious phone call in which I'm sure my mom said "if she got herself there, she can get herself back home" I was sent on my way. I remember it was later in the afternoon and being worried I might be late for dinner, so I picked up the pace.
If this story makes you want to call child protective services on my parents, you are probably at least a generation younger than I am. This was the 1970s, when kids were kicked out of the house each summer day and told to come back before dinner; the news wasn't plastered with scary stories about child abduction; there were no cell phones to obsessively track loved ones and frankly, our town was only 1/4 the size it is now. Surrounding our brand new subdivision were streets that ran through cow fields, orchards and early 1900s farmhouses. Coupled with the fact that most families only had one car, it was expected that kids would get themselves where they wanted to go on their own, and if you didn't get back by dinner don't expect to eat.
I'm sure mom would have eventually noticed I was gone if I hadn't shown up by sundown, and as you probably guessed, I made it home in time for dinner. I also wouldn't be surprised if my Grandma had followed me home in her big 'ole Lincoln Continental just to make sure I made it safely. If she did, I didn't see her.
I was thinking about this on my walk this morning. As I walked along one of the many paths following the creeks that intersect our city, I realized not for the first time that I was one of very few people walking, and of that small subset, even more rare was the solitary female walker. Mostly when I see other women, they are accompanied by a male companion. Nothing wrong with that, but why don't we feel safe walking alone?
I honestly don't think it's much more dangerous than it used to be. The increase in homelessness is a factor, and I do avoid a few of the more remote paths I know have a high occurrence of camps. It's actually not the homeless I'm avoiding, it's behavior brought on by drugs and mental illness. I live very near downtown and we have our share of homeless folks. I walk everywhere so naturally have seen many of the same people for years. Most of them are decent people brought down by terrible circumstances. The wandering vacant-eyed-arguing-with-invisible-opponent ones I avoid. Being stupid is different than being brave.
My biggest fear is actually traffic. I have looked drivers right in the eye before stepping off the curb, and they have still proceeded to turn right into the crosswalk. I've seen near-misses in crosswalks spanning four lanes, when one lane of traffic stops but the other just blows through. And there have been far more stories in the paper about pedestrians killed by inattentive drivers than abducted by crazed lunatics.
I might also just be my own biggest enemy. On a walk last November, I stepped on a branch and twisted my ankle, coming down hard on my face. A trip to the emergency room, 5 stitches, a broken nose. Now that's scary. Even scarier? The ER bill.
I'm not sure what the point of this post is, but I guess I wanted to put this out there: Don't be afraid to walk out the door. Visit your Grandma. Ride your bike. Be careful, be safe, be aware. But don't let it keep you from getting some exercise, some air, and meet new people that might not be in your demographic.
Just look both ways before you cross the street.
