Sure, why not.

The details are hazy, as this is a story from 40 years ago :)

I was old enough to play in the front yard unsupervised, but I do remember that my friends were at school, and I hadn't started Kindergarten yet. So I was probably 5 maybe 4 - my birthday was just after the kindergarten cutoff.

I was in my front yard playing, bright sunny day. A car pulls up in front of my yard, and a friendly looking guy rolls down the window and asks me where a particular street was. The street was actually the cross street right at the end of my block, so I did know where it was and pointed in the direction.

The man then proceeds to tell me that he's trying to find the street to pick up his daughter - who is about my age. Why, we would probably have fun playing together - I should get in and go with him to pick her up. There were more details to him playing up the playdate with his daughter, but the details are too fuzzy for me to remember them clearly.

At this point he smiles and opens his car door, and motions for me to get in. I put down the ball I was playing with and walk up to get in the car. Now, here's where I am not sure. I walked right up to the car, and for some reason I decided not to get in. I don't know why, maybe something my mother told me about going with strangers, or I just got cold feet. I really don't know.

But for whatever reason, I turned around and ran into my house. Guy was yelling - still in a friendly tone - to come back, we'll all have fun. I don't remember what I did after that, but I didn't tell anyone because to me it wasn't a big deal. I thought I was a Big Girl and of course an adult would ask a smart girl like me for directions.

Statistically speaking, if I had gotten in that car, I would have been dead in 24 hours. Kids that are abducted by strangers rarely show up alive after the fact.

I am very sad as an adult that I did not report this to my mother - because the monster probably just moved on to the next easy target and someone else died in my place. Maybe several. I will never know, don't really want to anyway.

I was not a helicopter parent with my daughters, I didn't even teach stranger danger because I hate when kids are scared of adults. My philosophy was this - don't leave life or death decisions up to young kids. Studies have shown again and again that no matter what you teach young kids about strangers, they are usually a sucker for a friendly face.

I was lucky.