The Child Stalker

Maybe I need to get out more often because when I go out these stories come up. Last week I was back in Shorewood, my college stomping grounds. And the story of the child stalker came up. Back in college 14 years ago, during the summer of 1996, I had an internship with the Village of Shorewood. My main job during that internship was to run the village's sidewalk replacement program. The village was broken up into 8 sections and every year one section is picked to have the sidewalks inspected and then replaced as necessary. At the time the village only had one vehicle for the interns to use, so I drove my own car which was in my parents name. I was out driving around alot in my car and making notes of which sidewalk squares to replace and the corresponding house addresses. In this section of the village that I was working their was also a day care center. Often the teachers would take the kids for walks. The teachers had made note of me, and apparently thought that I looked rather suspicious. I learned later that the teachers had actually sent out flyers to parents to be on the lookout for the "child stalker" who was tall with blonde hair driving a Pontiac 6000. My big day of construction finally came. It was the day in which we were pouring the concrete sidewalks. The crew had just finished up one street and we were moving on to the next street when a resident came up to me. Our conversation went something like this:
Resident: "Hey do you work for the village?"
Me: "Yes I do. How can I help you?"
Resident: "Do you have a phone?"
Me: "No."
Resident: "Well I need to call the police."
Me: "Why do you need to call the police?"
Resident: "Do you see that car over there?" (He was pointing to my car)
Me: "Yes."
Resident: "That is the car of the child stalker."
Me: "That is my car."
Resident: "Your the child stalker?"
Me: "No, I just told you. I work for the Village."
Resident: "Well you better call the police because they are looking for you."
At the time, I really couldn't go and explain things to the police because I had two more concrete trucks backed up waiting to pour sidewalks. It was about 2 hours later, we had just finished pouring the last sidewalk and I was walking back to my car. As I was about to cross the street when this white mini van came flying around the corner and this guy briskly walked up to me and asked me "Are you Jeff Davies?" I said "No. I am Rickie Davies. Wait a second, is this about the child stalker thing?" He said "Yes." I explained to him the situation. As we were talking, two more squad cars quickly came to the scene. Apparently they had run the plates on my car which as I mentioned was registered to my parents. At the time, my brother, Jeff, was the only one living at home. So they had all of his information. The Shorewood detective even went as far to call the Waukesha County Sheriff asking about my brother. My parents knew a number of the men in blue, as they got referred by the police to anyone who had been in a car kill deer accident, to have the deer processed. After a five minute conversation with the detective explaining things the detective, who was older short and a bit chubby, said to me "You know I am glad you aren't a child stalker." "Why is that?" I asked. He said, "Because I would have hated to have to take you down." I looked at him and said "I don't think you could have taken me down."

Lyric of the Day:
And now the towers are fallin,
Tumblin down, Tumbin down.
Oh can't you hear the angels calling?
Oh yeah, listen.
Shining through eternity.
As it was, so it shall be yeah.