Sometimes children disappear when taken by some relative or family "friend" who may or may not intend to harm them. The White House issued a grim press release in August of 2002, stating that that each year. "More than 58,000 children are abducted by non-family members" and "Many of these children are returned home quickly, but some are not." There are heartbreaking horror stories of children abducted and murdered, seemingly by random, at hands of strangers. Yet too many times children are abducted, molested, or killed by a neighbor or someone else known to child or family. These are agonizing betrayals since children may so easily be lured by a predator they know and might even like. Consider case of little Danielle Van Dam whose neighbor, David Westerfield, was convicted of kidnapping and killing this trusting child who knew him from her own, supposedly "safe", neighborhood!

We cannot wrap our children in a bubble of absolute protection and still allow them freedom to grow and explore life. We can, however, commit our parenting skills to prevention, assuring our children and ourselves that we are doing everything we can to keep them safe. Certainly we can keep an up-to-date file folder on each of our children with all of personal information that would be necessary to identify them. We can, and must, carefully consider all people we allow to have contact with our children. There have been far too many cases of children molested, abused, kidnapped or killed by a boyfriend of mother. Perhaps along with child support payments from non-custodial parents, we might start a trend toward using background checks when either custodial parent allows a boyfriend or girlfriend to share a dwelling with their child.

Statistics show standard of living after divorce often decreases, especially for women who become head of household. It is not surprising then that a mother who is struggling financially might be tempted to rush into a live-in arrangement with someone to help with responsibilities. Many times predators look for just these types of situations.

Seldom, however, do these single parents stop to think that they may be putting their child in harm's way under their own roof! Situations like this beg for background checks before handing over house key, and safety and well being of an innocent child.

Children depend on parents who are there to love them and tend to their needs. Background checks through organizations such as WhoisHe.Com and WhoisShe.Com are an affordable way to learn history of person you are expecting your child to allow close to them. You are your children's first line of defense. Don't let them down!

In addition to dresser, we had taken Mom’s cherry wood buffet. My mother had stored her tablecloths and what she referred to as her “good dishes" in buffet. Randy and I were also bringing home chest-of-drawers that I’d had since I was a little girl. Although middle drawer looks like two separate drawers, it is actually one big drawer. When I was growing up, I had been fascinated by design and had used big drawer for storing my sweaters.

But now, after we had so carefully loaded furniture and strapped it into back of truck, it was raining, which meant everything was all going to end up ruined.

No, wait a minute. The furniture was not going to get wet. We had put a tarp over load.

“Well, at least we’ve got a tarp,” I said to my husband. By this time, it was raining so hard windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, even on high.

Randy shook his head. “The tarp won’t help much unless we tie it down better.”

A few minutes later, my husband pulled off at a gas station.

“But what are we going to tie it down WITH?” I asked, as truck swayed in a gust of wind that hit it broadside. We hadn’t counted on wind and rain or that we would need more rope.

Randy smiled. “These,” he said, bending down to pull laces out of his work boots. “If I cut them into pieces, I should have enough to go around.”

It was still raining when we arrived home several hours later, so Randy put truck in garage. The next day I could hardly believe my eyes when we discovered that furniture had suffered only a few wet spots here and there, but that nothing had gotten completely soaked.

“What would I do without you?” I said to my husband as I ran my hand over Mom and Dad's dresser. “I never would have thought of shoelaces. Not in a million years.”

Randy shrugged. “I couldn’t let your mom and dad’s furniture get ruined, could I? What kind of a person would I be if I let that happen?”

And just then it dawned on me that even though it had seemed like my worst Thanksgiving ever, I actually had quite a few things to be thankful for. And my husband was right at top of list.

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LeAnn R. Ralph is the editor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer (the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Regional Writers' Assoc.) and is the author of the book: Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm) ( August 2003). Share the view from Rural Route 2 and celebrate Christmas during a simpler time. Click here to read sample chapters and other Rural Route 2 stories — http://ruralroute2.com mailto:bigpines@ruralroute2.com