Jim Hasson - Kidnap Survivor

 

 

So, for as long as I can remember, I've had a fear of being kidnapped. I know where this comes from. My father was a police officer, and he often saw people at their worst, so he tried to instill this healthy fear of strangers to my sister and I. And the first time this manifested itself, I was about eight years old as the neighborhood kids would play in the creek near my house that wound lazily through our town and butted right up against the street. We did the things that kids did in creeks. We lifted up rocks to find crayfish and minnows, we built dams and took those same rocks and threw them right at our friends’ feet to splash the shit out of them. 

 

So, this one day, stereotypical white windowless van pulls up to us, and a middle-aged man gets out and comes and starts asking us questions, what our name is, what are we doing, where do we live. Most of the kids gleefully walked up to him and answered his questions. But I stood in the back, very cautious and watched him. My AMBER Alert didn't go off until the moment when he started telling us that he would buy the fish that we pulled out of that creek. Even an 8-year-old knew that we were not pulling any fish out of that creek that could go on a plate to eat. So, I took off. You might want to note that I was not a hero. I wasn't like, “Come friends, let's get away from this guy.” [audience laughter] I just wore this ghostly out of there and went home. [audience laughter] [audience applause]

 

So, I had mentioned that my dad was a police officer, which meant he worked shift work, which meant he was in one of three states. He was whether at work, he was asleep or he was home wishing he was asleep. So, I went in the house and told him. He happened to be in this third state, he was home. And to his credit, when I told him the story about the guy in the van, he didn't brush me off. He said, “Jimmy, get in the car.” 

 

And we did. It was my dad, the police officer and his little deputy. We drove back to the creek and asked the kids where their van went. And then, we began winding our way through Havertown to try to find this white van. Luckily, we never found it, because I honestly don't know if I want to know what would have happened if we did. But it was nice because of my dad's job, we didn't get to spend much time together and we had a little bonding moment there looking for that van. 

 

But my vigilance against kidnapping did not wane. When I was 13, I would walk to and from middle school mostly alone. It was about two miles. Since my offspring is here, I'll say, it was uphill both ways. [audience laughter] I had the overactive imagination where I would imagine getting almost kidnapped and I would escape. I had different contingency plans for each leg of my trip. Most of them involved going over that very same creek and assuming that kidnappers didn't want to get their feet wet. [audience laughter] It was very, again, overactive imagination and irrational until the day that it actually happened. 

 

I was walking home. It was a late spring day, very impossibly sunny. I was at the leg of my trip when I was almost home, I could see my house. Ironically, I didn't have a contingency plan for that situation, because I figured I'd just sprint home. And then, sure enough, a car that I didn't recognize pulls right up to me. The driver pushes open the passenger seat door and beckons me over. I looked in, and because of the way the sun was, I couldn't see the person. It was just a shadowy figure wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, trying to get me to come in. And I was like, “Oh, hell, no” and I took off, except it didn't seem right for me just to go straight home. 

 

So, I cut through the neighbor's driveway and then began making my way home through their backyards, knocking over swing sets, trampling gardens, just disturbing all manner of neighborhood dogs, making them lose their shit and going through pricker bushes, over fences, until finally I grabbed the door handle of my house and I knew I had made it. I opened the door, ready to tell my dad, who was going to be proud of me. He was actually in his third state again. He was home. He was sitting at the kitchen table with my mom. They were laughing, and he was wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses. [audience laughter] I started to tell him my story, and he interrupted me and said, “Jimmy, what the hell is wrong with you?” 

 

You see, my dad had got a new car that day, and he was very excited to pick me up on my way home from school to give me a ride, but I was so vigilant about being kidnapped that I just took off. In the midst of him yelling and laughing at me, I read between the lines and knew that my dad was proud of me, and that while he had a number of other things to worry about me, kidnapping wasn't one of them. Thank you.