The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Bad

Buffalo, NY, Movie Drive-In  1953

Pedophile Assault - Me the victim

I was about age 15, and as usually on a hot humid summer night, most kids living in the old World War II nearby housing projects headed for the Buffalo Drive-In Theater, which was actually located in Cheektowaga, a Buffalo suburb.  People sat on a blanket or stood near the chain link fence and to the closest car speakers to enjoy the free movies.  It was a weeknight and hardly anyone was around.  I was standing alone that night and watching the movie.  There were a few cars parked nearby inside the Drive-In.  A man, about my size, 5-8 inches, and in his twenties, approached me.  He said nothing and stood off to my right about fifteen feet.  After about ten minutes he said, “Hi” and I replied “Hi,” in return.  He got closer and stood next to me in silence.  Finally after a few minutes he asked me, “Do you like girls?”  And I nonchalantly said, “Yea.”  After a couple of minutes and while I had my hands in my pockets he put his hand between my legs.  I reacted quickly and made a fist and told the guy if he didn’t get away I would punch him.  He wisely chose to put more space between us and a few minutes later he walked away.  It was lucky for me that I was a cocky kid, trained with weights and was on my high school’s wrestled team.  But he could have been armed!

The Ugly

Cupertino, CA  

Pedophile - The shoe is on the other foot.

My landlady got the nerve to tell me that a couple of months back that the next-door neighbor man quizzed her about me.  He thought I might be a pedophile, since I was outside when their children were playing.  My landlady told them that she had known me for seven years and I that was an engineer.  She said that I was outside because I was doing yard work at her request. 

The Bad

Cheektowaga, NY

Kidnapping - Victim, one of my siblings.

In my family, there are seven of us brothers and sisters and there is a big gap in our ages.  Years ago one of my brothers was kidnapped.  A frighten neighborhood boy came crying and knocking at my parent’s door.  The boy said that they were playing when a car pull up along side the curb, and a man jumped out and grabbed my brother and drove away.  My parents called the police.  We all scoured the neighborhood looking for him. Hours later, my brother came home, but refused to say what happened. To him even when questioned by the police.  To this day no one really knows what really happen.  And not one of us has ever asked him.  And that was decades ago.

The Bad

Rape

One of my family members was a nurse at a hospital in Buffalo, New York.  She was on her way home, from the night shift, and headed in the direction of hospital parking lot.  That night she was attacked and raped.  She never got professional counseling, quit her hospital job and later went into seclusion.  She lives in a tiny apartment with the blinds drawn and doesn’t speak to our family. 

 Recently, after visiting a friend in a well-known hospital in Palo Alto, California I noticed a female nurse walking alone to her car.  I would have thought that the hospitals would provide an escort.