It was a warm summer day in my rural childhood town of a few thousand people. I was out in the yard playing with the hose, being thoroughly entertained by creating little lakes in our front yard while my father was in the backyard cleaning the pool. We lived on a corner in a fairly nice area - Nothing interesting ever happened around here... very little traffic and even the sound of a police siren was a noticeable occurrence. As I was splashing around, doing what boys do best, a light brown car pulled up and parked on the road in front of my house, speckled with a few copper colored rust spots, right near where I playing. I could see there was a middle aged man and women inside. Soon after they stopped, I heard the popping of the passenger door and saw it swing gently open. A woman leaned out slightly from the car, placing one foot on the pavement and beamed an inviting smile in my direction. Our eyes met. "Hey little boy...", she gestured, "Would you like some candy?". I immediately dropped the hose and ran faster than I ever had before to the backyard to find my father. When I found him, I saw that the rusty car had turned the corner and followed me along our property towards the back. As they drove by, the woman gave a thousand-yard menacing stare of disgust at us both - then flipped us off out of her open window and sped off in a flash, screeching the pavement. The next day we got a German Shepherd.

Now more than ever is a great time to remind your children about "Stranger Danger". If my parents hadn't taught me about that early on, who knows where I would be today, or what would have happened to me... I thank my parents for that to this very day.