Kidnapped!

Twenty-five years ago today, October 6, 1987, was a beautiful fall day. My children were 3, 5, and 8. Nathan and Courtney were napping, Elizabeth was at Girl Scouts, when the phone rang. A woman said, "Do you know a Sidney Sandridge?" I said, "Yes, he's my father, is something wrong?" The woman answered, "He's here on my porch, and he says he's been carried from Birmingham in the trunk of his car." I said, "Did he pick up another hitchhiker?" She said, "Well, I don't know, but he's here, and he wondered if you could come and get him." I asked if I could speak with him, and she replied, "I didn't let him in my house, but he's here on my porch." I asked if he was okay, and she said he was. I got her name and address, and told her, "He's a preacher, you can let him in" and that I would be on my way.

I looked at the clock - 4:30. I checked the refrigerator for Mike's itinerary. He was on a plane to Akron, departing at about that time. I was on my own. I called my friend, who had a daughter in the same scout troop as Elizabeth. I asked if I could take Nathan and Courtney to her house, and if she would pick up Elizabeth and keep the children until I got home. She asked where I was going, and I told her what I knew. She tried to talk me into taking the children to someone else's house, so she could ride with me, but I refused. I had said I was on my way, and I didn't want to delay.

Having no GPS in 1987, I looked at my trusty Roadway Atlas, and found the street, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. I saw that I could get on 265 and either take Highway 20 across town and then go south, or take 265 all the way around the south side of Atlanta. I turned on the radio, praying, "Lord, please tell me which way to go." Almost immediately I heard a traffic update. It said 265 south was slow, but I20 was clear all the way through. I said a quick "Thanks!" and headed west on 20.

In spite of the 5:00 traffic on a Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta, I got to Anna Henderson's house on the south side in about 45 minutes. Daddy was waiting there for me, along with what seemed like half of the Atlanta Police Department. He had called my mom, and told her what had happened. He got in my car, and we followed the police cars to the Police Department headquarters. When we got there, he tried to call my mother, but for some reason the call didn't go through. After that, we were there for hours. The FBI was called in, because it was an interstate kidnapping. Paramedics were called, because he had cuts and bruises on his face, neck and arms.

That's when I heard what had happened. Daddy had been walking at lunchtime, on a track at Avondale Park. Usually he would go to the Y, but it was a nice day, so he decided to walk outside. Two men came out of the woods near the track, beat him up, strangled him with his tie, took his keys, and put him in the trunk of his car. Then they started driving. They had the radio playing loudly, so he was unable to hear any talking, but made several stops, and he thought they were putting things in the car. They drove around for several hours, and finally he could tell by the radio station that they were approaching Atlanta. He heard them driving through tall grass, and stop the car. One of the men came around, opened the trunk, and told him to get out. Daddy got out of the trunk. His shirt was torn, but there was a flannel shirt in the trunk of the car, which the man gave him. Daddy said to the man, "God bless you, and He loves you both." Then the man got back in the car and they drove away.

Daddy looked around, and saw that he was in a vacant lot near a neighborhood. A woman was sweeping her front steps. He walked over near her and asked if she could help him. She was suspicious, but he simply asked her to call his daughter who lived near Atlanta. After she called me, Anna Henderson took my dad a glass of water and a warm wet washcloth for his cuts. Then she called the police.

Finally, we were able to leave the police department. We called Mama, and she met us at a Waffle House halfway between Birmingham and Atlanta around midnight. Then we found out what she had been going through. She had called Daddy's secretary around lunchtime, and the secretary said he wasn't in, but she didn't know where he was. It wasn't unusual for him to be out, because he worked for a savings and loan, and visited branches all over the city. When he called her from Anna Henderson's home, it was about the time that she was expecting to hear from him. When he told her he had been kidnapped, she didn't believe him, because he was a big practical joker. Finally he convinced her, and then she didn't hear from him for hours. She had called her brother in Atlanta, and his son-in-law, an attorney, had been calling police precincts, trying to find out where we were and what was happening.

I headed back home, and had to stop for gas in Atlanta, around 2 am. I would have to say that was the scariest part of the night. When I got home and went to pick up my children, I learned that my adventure had been the talk of the neighborhood. Since Mike was out of town, my friends were convinced that someone had lured me out of my house for a nefarious purpose. There were no cell phones at that time, so they couldn't contact me. They did the only things they could do - the men went to my house to make sure nobody broke into it while I was gone, and the women took care of my children and prayed for my safety.

The next day, Mike called from Akron. When I told him of my adventure, he was outraged. Not because my dad had been kidnapped, but because I had handled the whole situation on my own. He said I should have called the airport and had him called off the plane, and I should never have ventured into south Atlanta by myself. I looked at it differently. My dad needed me, and I was there for him. I never considered that what I was doing was dangerous in any way, and if I had it to do over, I would do exactly the same thing.

Growing up on a College Campus

Growing up on a College Campus

Ahhh, you’re thinking, this is a coming of age story. But it’s not.

Welcome to my world, you say, meaning you understand how I feel. But I wonder…

Do you really understand? There were only a few of us who grew up this way.

Did you play hide and seek under the administration building on a college campus? Were the fountains and walkways, benches and shrubbery your playground?

Did you ever walk into the Dean’s office or the President’s office, sure of your welcome, and say, “Hi Daddy”?

Did you sell Girl Scout cookies in the boys’ dorm? Man, those guys bought lots of cookies!

Did you take baton lessons from the college majorettes or ballet with college students?

Did you wear a frilly white dress with a crinoline and a wreath of flowers in your hair on May Day as you watched the Queen crowned?

Were sophomore, dormitory, and commencement common words in your vocabulary?

Did you spend hours upon hours in the college library with no papers to write, just for the sheer pleasure of getting to know Louisa May Alcott?

Did you get married in the college chapel at age 5?

Did you learn to swim in an indoor pool under the gym?

Were Founder’s Day, Parents’ Weekend, and May Day regular celebrations in your life?

Was your father ever burned in effigy by angry students?

Did you have students from faraway lands spend Christmas and Thanksgiving in your home because it was too far for them to go home?

Did you learn to butter one bite of a biscuit and which fork to use in the faculty dining room?

Did you get to rummage through the dorm rooms after the students had left for the summer, finding treasures of old makeup, cheap jewelry, and countless issues of Bride’s magazines?

If you grew up in a neighborhood where fathers went to work at different jobs, if you lived in the same house all the years that you were growing up, went to the same schools, and had the same friends, I envied you at times. Every time we moved to a different college, many things in my life changed. The constants were my family, our faith, and the fact that we were “faculty” – the college, whichever college it was at the time, was not just where my dad worked. It was central to our lives. “The college” was always home to me.