Community Chat

[151949]

I am 67 years old and for centuries before we were born there have been criminals, drunks and drug addicts out at night and it has not been  safe to be wandering about in certain areas. I would and I occasionally do walk around where I live at night and I feel perfectly safe.Well, except for the alligators. Once In  my life a man put something in my ribs in the neighborhood where I worked and said to give him all my money. I only had a dime so I turned my pockets inside out to show him and he said I needed it worse than him. It was in the middle of the day. All that said - my first husband was killed at the night deposit box where he went to deposit the days cash from his business.It was a bad neighborhood, it was dark and it was in an unlit alley in 1979.

[dooBdoo]

          @Annabellethecat66, Many of us wrote about the "reasons" for some of the problems.   Also, I agree with @QVCkitty1 that it's a false narrative to start by presuming the "old days" were better regarding walking alone at night.

[Noel7]

@Annabellethecat66

It seems you expect people to agree with your reality, but we did not all have the same experience or live in sleepy little towns where everyone left their doors open.

There were numerous infamous killers around in the 60s and 70s.  Remember Richard Speck who killed 8 nurses?  He was around when you were young, as were other killers.  

Many of us never took safety for granted because of them.

[missy1]

My childhood friend (not a teen yet) was murdered, so after that I was more cautious of my surroundings. 

[Noel7]

I'm sorry missy and 151949.

[dooBdoo]

          I'm sorry you had those horrendous experiences, @Buck-i-Nana, @151949, @missy1, and anyone else, too.

[catwhisperer]

I have NEVER walked alone at night and I am 65. I had a friend who was raped and murdered in the 70's during the daytime. For those of you who have had to deal with horrific crimes against you, family members and loved ones, I am truly sorry. 

[dooBdoo]

---

@catwhisperer wrote:

I have NEVER walked alone at night and I am 65. I had a friend raped and murdered in the 70's during the daytime. For those of you who have had to deal with horrific crimes against against you, family members and loved ones, I am truly sorry. 

---

@catwhisperer

[151949]

When I was in high school I worked at a bakery at night until 10:00PM then I would get the bus home right at the bakery door.My Dad would stay up until 10:30Pm so he could pick me up at the bus so I did not have to walk home in the dark at night. Every night I worked either my dad or my boyfriend was there to drive or walk me home from the bus.

[scotnovel]

Frankly I wonder when were these so called good old days? I grew up in the 50's and 60's and we lived through all of the following:

Constant Cold War and supposed Communist threat,

political assasinations (or attempted)  - John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace, and others

Tens of thousands of young men killed in Viet Nam and in those days the war and the war protests were in our face on the TV news full force virtually every night.  

Race riots, like the Watts riot, in the mid 60's.   Violent riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. 

Organized crime was rampant in some major cities, which included public killings, and, even in a smaller city near where I lived, there was at least one car bombing. 

Plane hijackings 12-15 in US alone in 50's and 60's and more than 30 in the 70's

Manson Family murders

Several prominent serial killers in 50's-70's and in spite of the fact that we didn't have all the media we do today we still heard a lot about them - Bundy, Son of Sam, Boston Strangler, Hillside Stranglers, Zodiac, etc etc

Women were subjected to domestic abuse maybe more often, or certainly just as often, as today.  The difference was there weren't hardly any services or places they could turn to and family and friends and, especially law enforcement, frequently looked the other way.  And, don't get me started on child abuse!

Women were treated as second class citizens in many ways.  In my own experience, I was told I couldn't open a JC Penney account without my husband's permission even though I was the only one of us with a profession (RN) and an income as he was finishing graduate school. 

I could add so many more.  My point is that it is nice to think that we grew up in the good ole days and that everyone was safe all the time, but the truth is there really isn't any such thing.