There was a time when I was small and the Bad Man came for me.

Looking at me now at 6’4″ and 250 pounds on a good day, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.  My tininess is one of the vivid things I recall about one of my earliest memories. I can’t pinpoint my exact age, but I was tiny enough to comfortably fit on my favorite tricycle, probably around 3 years old.

Mom had placed me outside in the driveway with strict instructions to not leave the yard. Then she blithely went inside our little house to do her chores. Yes, in the 1950’s mothers thought nothing of leaving their 3-year-old toddler outside alone without a worry in the world.

We lived in a modest Greensboro neighborhood filled with first-time houses for small families. And while the houses were small, the greenery was gorgeous with old trees in every backyard, ours included. There were no fences between backyards, just a line of bushes or small trees to indicate the property lines. Our driveway marked out a path from the street to the right side of the house.

There I was, little Danny, pumping my chubby legs for all they were worth, pushing my tricycle inch by inch up the driveway. The cheap brick gravel Dad had used to line the driveway made for slow going, but I didn’t mind. It was a pleasant sunny spring day in North Carolina in the magical space between the cold winters and the sweltering summers. I would ride my trike to the end of the driveway, turn around, ride it back to the other end, rinse and repeat. I didn’t care about politics, a paying job, terrorists, or crime. I was 3 years old and I was riding my trike. All was right with the world.

Then the Bad Man came.

He came from the left side of our backyard. His appearance was sudden, crashing through the modest green barrier between properties. Besides the shock of anyone intruding on our backyard like that, there was the matter of his costume. He wore a wide brimmed black hat with a curved flourish. A black mask covered the upper half of his face. The rest of the costume was oddly decorative bounded by leather boots that went up to his knees.

Years later, I would realize that he was dressed like one of the Three Musketeers. Yes, really.

I didn’t understand that he looked like a musketeer nor did I care. I just knew that this strange man had intruded into a place where intrusions should never happen, our yard. I stopped cycling for what seemed like ages. I froze to my tricycle, unable to move, speak, or breathe. Terror was an animal that suddenly had me in its maw and refused to let go. My little fists gripped the handlebars. I wanted to run, but was too overcome with fear.

In reality, I couldn’t have been stuck there for long. The man was only halfway across the yard before I started crying as loud as I could. The man hadn’t even noticed me until then. Now, he finally turned his head to his right and saw me. I was too young to gauge his reaction, especially through the mask. He said nothing but instead maintained his steady walking pace. Moments later, he disappeared through the greenery to the next backyard.

That did little to help my mood. My little body produced screams so loud that Mom heard me and came running out of the house.

That’s the last thing I remember.

Years later, I asked my mother if she remembered the incident. She did. However, all she could get out of me at the time was “The bad man scared me!” It took quite a while to calm me down.

About three years later, we moved from that neighborhood to Sedgefield Lakes, a more upscale neighborhood a bit farther away from the outer border of the city proper. The new house was not big, but it was certainly bigger than our old house.

The old house is still there with even more trees in the backyard. There a new enclosed garage at the end of the driveway and the brick gravel is long gone, but the house looks pretty much the same. Here is a picture from Zillow: