Peddle Andy Peddle,

The brown eyed girl and I found ourselves in Blowing Rock North Carolina this week, a town which I knew little if anything about and which, in fact, I hardly knew existed. As we were walking up the street toward our hotel we cut through a little park with lots of play equipment for children. As might be expected, there were a couple of little girls and a small boy playing on the “monkey bars” and a little way away I noticed an older man, about my age I suppose, watching the three. Immediately my mind went to what the old fellow might be up too and so I lingered behind a bit to just watch. In a few minutes he called the three over and it became evident this was their grandfather, watching to make sure out of town characters, like me, did not cause any harm to his precious charges. Quickly my doubts turned to feeling a little ashamed that I had so quickly characterized the man. Just hours before, we had departed Mt. Airy North Carolina where Andy Griffith grew up and the town which became the model for Maberry of “The Andy Griffith Show.” The lady from the Chamber of Commerce who was showing us around, stressed over and over the places where Andy once peddled his bike, always saying, “Andy just peddled his bike over here to take trombone lessons, In those days, a child could go anywhere safely here in town,” leaving us to infer that this was not true today. I know it was true of Carthage when we were growing up. We rode our bikes at night and hung out under the old fluted shade street lamps, fighting the bugs that circled around above. We roller skated on the newly asphalted streets and trick-r-treated from house to house across the length and breadth of the town from the time we were in the third grade. I personally was not a fan of the hot lunch program at school, and so walked home for lunch, generally in the pleasurable company of a few other kids who though a sandwich at home beat “mystery meat” at school. We played “cops-n-robbers” and “kick-the-can” until ten o’clock, generally avoiding coming within hearing distance of our own house for fear our mothers might call. Never in my memory was there any mention of fear that someone would take us away. Probably our parents’ consensus was, when daylight came, and anyone who might have taken us away saw in the clear light of day what they had, they would bring us back. At any rate they didn’t seem to worry in the slightest. I’m not sure I know whether things are just so much worse today, or whether the 24 hour news cycle, in search of some new, startling, and awful thing to tell us, just makes us keenly aware of the dangers that can exist, but I am quite sure my own kids would never allow my grandchildren to do the things we did, and neither would I. It saddens me though, to think of the loss of innocence, not only of children but of our nation as a whole. We have, as a people, become aware beyond our years of the dangers that await the unsuspecting, and the harm that can befall the innocent, and our days are watchful and our sleep troubled as a result. Eccl. 7:10 says, “Say not the former days are better than these.” But I find that hard advice to follow these days. Have a blessed day, Bob bob.chaffin@maplehillchurch.org