Posted on 09/19/2016 1:26:37 PM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon
A dad in Ostego, Michigan—population 3,956—terrified parents, police, and school administrators by handing out teddy bears to people he passed on the street, including children in the presence of adults. It was Ken Cronkhite's attempt to spread some happiness and help his 89-year-old father, the owner of an 800-teddy bear collection, to downsize.
And it backfired.
As news spread of a man, a plan, and his plush toys, the police department's phone lines lit up. Officers sped off to patrol the bus stops as at least one frantic mom ripped apart her kid's bear to see if it contained something insidious.
Meanwhile, the school district jumped into action, alerting parents with emergency phone calls and going on Facebook to warn of "a heavyset, older, white man handing out teddy bears to kids from his silver SUV."
"We have not been told that this man threatened anyone or tried to lure students to him, and adults have been present during two encounters," the letter said, "however, it raises a concern as we want to be sure our students are safe."
Hmm. A man who is not threatening kids, nor luring them, and only approaching the ones who are directly supervised by an adult? Yes, that sure is scary.
According to the Kalamazoo Gazette's mlive.com, commenters on the Facebook post fretted that the bears could be filled with heroin syringes or hidden cameras. But when Cronkhite's teenage son read it, he realized: That's my dad!
Dad immediately called the cops to tell them: I'm your man.
Cronkhite said he is a veteran Marine and a retired Chicago police officer and had fun approaching shoppers with children in store parking lots, people jogging along the streets, and children gathered with adults at bus stops or picnic tables.
He said he made sure there was an adult accompanying any children he approached.
He said he started the direct giveaways after he had distributed bags of bears to Sylvia's Place shelter for battered women, and to the American Cancer Society in Kalamazoo. Some charities would not accept the stuffed animals because they were not brand new, he said.
So his elderly mother washed them all and his father told him to just give them to any takers in an attempt to spread some happiness, Cronkhite said.
But spreading happiness is a lot harder than spreading hysteria, Cronkhite learned.
When his father asked him to distribute the bears to children, it never occurred to him not to do it.
"It was really fun until this happened," said Cronkhite.
"This" being America 2016, when even the police chief says that parents are "rightly on alert for any contact between their children and adults they don't know."
Even when the kids are standing right next to their parents, the parents are "rightly" on alert. Because no one who isn't you should ever interact with your kids. After all, you never know when a man with a teddy bear might pull the syringe out of the bear's stuffing, shoot the parent full of heroin, and run off with the child.
Certainly Cronkhite has learned what it means to be male and friendly and a little offbeat: "I will never try to go out and try to do anything nice for anyone again," he said.
What a relief.
It has come to this........................B^(
From the Grateful Dead, yeah................
Thanks to the automatic man = pedo/rapist stupidity that infests both sides of the political spectrum, this is what any guy can expect.
“Oh, bother,” said Pooh.
/sarc
~ MM ~
The last name of the man in the article is Cronkhite.
The sign off I posted was from the famous CBS journalist, Walter Cronkite. He signed off the CBS Evening News on television with that departing salutation for ... oh, 20+ years, I suppose.
Giving things away is the job of the GOVERNMENT!
It’s a jaded world out there.
No wonder people freaked out.
A pure good deed... no guile, no weirdness, no ulterior motive involved? *Who ever sees that?*
I myself even wonder if the story is faked just to get a rise out of people. :-/
In any case, imagine what would happen if the Messiah showed up and started handing out teddy bears, or gathered kids around to entertain them with fun stories, or put Spiderman or Hello Kitty bandages on their scuffed knees?
He’d be lucky to make it out alive.
The Government must be the sole source of charity and munificence.
Sometimes you have to give it right back to them just as hard.
People are nuts.. ripped the bear apart to check for drugs?
Hey, that might have been a great idea for a raffle. Buy the bear with a kilo of coke in it.. get a Presidential pardon.
This is what we've come to as a society. Frankly, I'm not sure if we deserve to survive.
“...one frantic mom ripped apart her kid’s bear to see if it contained something insidious.”
Odds are that this was the rare 1904 Steiff bear that was in mint condition and worth as much as $100,000.00
Who are you calling “ancient”????????????
See something, say something, run amok.
See something, say something, run amok.
Okay. If you were born after 1949, you are not ancient.
You are a young whipper snapper!! Better?
(Actually, I used “ancient” because Cronkite has been gone from the scene so long that many of the younger FREEPERs may have never had a chance to hear the famous signoff.)
“No one who isn’t you should interact with your kids.”
This s a strange statement. Even with parents present? This is a sure way to break the bonds of community by instilling paranoia in the young.
He should have handed out free “love is love” rainbow colored condoms .. which would raise 0 red flags in these azz..backward times.
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