Who's at risk?

We were out to enjoy the autumn leaves on the last nice day before the weatherman told us rain and high winds would strip the trees. The sky was blue and the air was crisp as we drove along the edge of town toward the park by the river.

“Down this way—” My mother-in-law pointed to a short street that ended abruptly on a bluff overlooking the park. “—there’s a cul-de-sac where kids come to take drugs. Our friends often find stoned teens asleep in their front yard.”

I was shocked. Here? In the small Minnesota town where my husband grew up? The town where we lived when our girls were in junior high that one of our Indiana friends described as “living in a Norman Rockwell painting”? It didn’t seem real. I’m not naïve enough to think there is no crime in small towns even though when Mom sold the house Steve grew up in, she hadn’t locked the door in so long that she couldn’t find the keys. Unfortunately, crime is everywhere. But I grieved for the despair of teens that would get sucked into such as destructive life.

We parked our car near the low bridge (as opposed to the high bridge that the highway uses to cross the river.) Two small children played on the climbing frame under the watchful eye of a man who might have been their grandfather. I thought of the delight of my own nearly-two grand daughter who is getting more articulate by the day. “Playground” is now part of her vocabulary, and she shouts it enthusiastically whenever she sees one.

Mom and I walked down an asphalt path across the lawn and followed on into the woods where it turned to dirt and scattered leaves. But I couldn’t get those stoned kids out of my mind. Was this a pleasant walk along the river bank far from the noises and smells of traffic and the garish lights of strip malls? Or was it an isolated spot to take drugs or have sex with no one around to say ‘no’?

The young people our friends find asleep in their yard were once as small and vulnerable as Bella. They came to the park to climb on the playground, throw a ball or shuffle through the leaves to Grandpa. Then somewhere along the line, despair took hold.

African children aren’t the only ones at risk.