Something has surprised me about living in a shore town for the winter — crime. Well, maybe not crime so much as several close calls. I have had four uncomfortable incidents since Christmas night.

The first three weeks here, I walked all around the town in the day and at night for several blocks by myself. It seemed to be the safest place you could find.

Then, on the night of Christmas Day I was walking Amy down the street when out of the darkness staggered a large man. He was sort of growling. I wondered whether I should run past him or go down the street the other way. But then he saw me. He began to walk towards me saying, "Miss, Miss." My adrenalin kicked in big time and I ran up onto the nearest porch and banged on the door and rang the bell. Pretty soon a woman came to the door and I asked, "Can I come in?" She said, "No."

I pointed to the man and told her he was scaring me and she told me that she would call the police. When the man saw she was on the phone he went on down the street. At that point she did open the door and was very nice and sympathetic. I was shaking when the police arrived. Amy, who had not growled at the scary guy, growled at the cop. Great. The police followed me home and my husband was in for quite a tale that he was oblivious to the entire time. The next day I took the woman flowers and she told me that people had tried to get her to open the door before and once when she did, the guy put his foot in when she tried to close it. Luckily she had a Great Dane at the time who came to her rescue.

The next incident took place on the boardwalk. I was walking Amy on a leash, as the law demands, when a young man of about 28 came along with a pit bull off her leash. I told him that my dog was afraid of other dogs, but he ignored me and brought his dog over. She seemed nice, but then coming the other way was a woman with another pit on a leash. His dog ran over to her dog and she was demanding that the man put his dog on a leash since a fight was about to happen. This guy seemed crazy to me as he had no regard for our requests, and so I yelled, "You know, you should be more considerate." He yelled, "Shut up!" I yelled back, "You shut up!" Then he began to walk over towards us, so I figured we're out of here because I did not want to try to reason with crazy. The other woman began to tell him off and with that he turned and ran at her and her dog with his dog in a most aggressive attack. He stopped just in time and they went their separate ways.

So, you never know when you leave home. There are a lot of people out there who are not nice; it is wise to be prepared and careful. You might want to buy pepper spray; and a large dog is maybe the best deterrent there is.