A Boy and His Dog
by E. Noel Preston, MD

   Last Sunday morning I was walking my dog outside Susan's house and I saw something I haven't seen in 30 years. A young boy about nine or ten years old, wearing blue jeans and a colored pull over shirt, was riding towards me, lazily pedaling his bicycle up the street. It wasn't a fancy thin-wheeled racing bike with rear view mirrors or hand brakes or water bottles -- it was a plain old fashioned kid's bike, just like the one I had when I was his age. He wasn't wearing a helmet, was all by himself, and when he saw me he called out in a cheerful, friendly voice, "Hello!" I answered him "Good Morning" and he passed by me, quietly riding down the road.

   I was pleased, surprised, concerned, and a little disappointed all at once. When my grandson Luke was only four years old, he would get very upset if his father didn't wear a helmet when he bicycled only four blocks away to get the evening newspaper. And now this pleasant young boy was pedaling down the street without one.

   A few years ago I was bicycling one afternoon and a car kept coming over closer and closer to me until it forced me off the road. I fell off the bike and hit my head on the sidewalk. The impact cracked my bicycle helmet and I lost consciousness for a few seconds. I also broke my right collar bone. If I had not been wearing the helmet I would have cracked my skull and probably would have died. 

   This young boy also spoke to me, a stranger, which most children are taught not to do. How would he know I wasn't some bad person who might hurt him? Didn't his parents teach him anything? Once upon a time I had been a boy just like him, and my parents had cautioned me about talking to strangers -- but if they had made me afraid to speak to one of my neighbors out walking his dog on a Sunday morning, I might have become so afraid of anything and everything I would never have left home. 

   Actually, most child molestations are not committed by strangers, but by family members, neighbors, or someone the child knows. When I was nine years old, my school bus driver knew I liked standing next to him and watching him drive the bus and pull on the handle to open the big front door, and one afternoon, when he reached my stop for me to get off, he asked me if I wanted to go home with him instead to have a soft drink. When we got there, he said he needed to change out of his uniform, and he went into his bedroom to change clothes -- but he didn't shut the bedroom door. All he did was change his shirt. He didn't take off his pants or his underwear, nothing bad happened, and I thought nothing about it. We had a soft drink and then he drove me back to the bus stop near my house and let me out. Of course, I was late getting home from school and my mother wanted to know why. When I told her, she was very angry and insisted on taking me down to the bus terminal that very afternoon. She had me tell my story all over again to the supervisor, and after that, I never saw the bus driver again. I don't know if he was a bad person or not, and if he wasn't, maybe he would have become one later. On the one hand, I'm sorry my mother reported him -- but on the other, maybe she saved my life. I suspect she did the right thing, but I still wonder.

   I remember riding my bicycle all over the neighborhood when I was a boy, and my dog would run along with me. We let dogs run loose back then -- and sometimes they would chase birds or squirrels, or take an afternoon nap on a neighbor's driveway. If we had a dog that would snarl or growl at the postman, we would keep him indoors until the postman had come and gone, and then we would let the dog out again. Most of the dogs back then were friendly, and the ones that weren't we kept tied up or behind a fence. And so a few years ago when local governments started requiring all dogs out of doors to be kept on leashes, I didn't like it.

   Until I became a bicycle rider. There was this one house near the Sandy Springs library that had a horrible, huge, mean, vicious dog that used to run out from his yard and chase me whenever I would ride by. I always managed to evade him, but he was very fast and could get frighteningly close, snapping and biting at my feet. One afternoon I passed his house and he came streaking out of his yard, snarling and slobbering like crazy. He had to cross a lane of traffic to get to me and was so intent on catching me he ran full tilt into the side of a little old lady's car. He hit the car and flew high up into the air, turning a full head-over-heels somersault, his mouth wide open and huge wet red tongue hanging out of it, his eyes staring at a world turning upside down, and I thought, "Die, you son-of-a-bitch, die!" and he did. He was dead when he hit the ground, and I was glad. The owners came running out and accused the lady of running over their dog, but when I went by there again on my return home, I saw the police writing up a report and told them what had happened.

   After that, even though I have the sweetest, friendliest, most affectionate little dog in the world, I'm in favor of leash laws -- for her own protection as well as everyone else's. We not only need leash laws, we need bicycle helmet laws and seat belt laws and nobody drinking out of lead pipe plumbing or riding in the back of pick up trucks laws too.

   And the friendly young boy that I saw outside Susan's house this past week? It was after all, a peaceful Sunday morning on a quiet residential street with hardly any traffic. And even though he saw my sweet little dog Minerva, he didn't stop to come over and pet her or talk to me -- and I'm sort of glad he didn't.
Nothing bad happened to any of us that day, and I hope it never does.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553. More information can be found at www.PeachtreeCornersPediatrics.com

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