Lovely Bones

As I was watching the movie the Lovely Bones, I had some really bad nostalgia. The 70's was not a time of big time searches for missing children, in fact there was very little press, no DNA testing and little education on that subject.

When I was a freshman in high school a fellow classmate disappeared one winter day. I don't recall anyone at school or in my own home discussing a missing child. It just wasn't done during those years.

Months after the young girl's disappearance, I was approached at my bus stop in the early morning hours by a man in a car who asked if I needed a ride. I told him no because I didn't know who he was. Now through sheer luck or divine intervention, the man did not force me into his car, he merely drove away. When my mother learned of this incident, she drove me to the bus stop for the next week but we never discussed what may have happened. The missing girl's body was found downtown in an old movie theater. She had been raped, killed and her frozen body was stuffed amongst the building's debris. I learned about the details years later.

Sex offenders and crimes to kids were treated like dirty little secrets in that Ozzie and Harriet era. Ken our next door neighbor was a well known Peeping Tom. From time to time the families in the area would see someone looking into windows in the dead of night. No one called the police or beat the crap out of him, it was accepted that Ken liked to look into windows. He had a wife and two kids and obviously had some issues. Our good Catholic parents never warned us to stay away from him, my mother was good friends with his wife and my sister and I played with his kids.

Was it ignorance or naivety? Probably both. Now this was the era of priests molesting boys and girls, remember. The authority of a priest, nun or parents trumped a child's "foolish" ramblings about some touching,peeking or worse. The person in authority was always to be respected and believed.

The movie so beautifully written and filmed evoked fears from my own youth. It took me back to a time that once appeared so perfect but when examined alittle closer showed telltale signs of all those dirty secrets beginning to unravel.