Lord of the Flies....Part 2...

Old Man Konkel, the sharp shooting, unfairly harassed , falsely labeled Nazi, didn't have to worry about shit like litigation or being arrested. The day he dropped down in that drainage creek like it was a trench outside of Paris during WW2, and lit up the fat slow kid with a BB gun, was way back in the early 1970's. The rules were different, nowadays it isn't even the same game. Some out of control kid comes running around a corner in the grocery store and headbutts you in the balls you'll be lucky to avoid molestation charges and a lawsuit. A teacher barks at some unruly student, that teacher might be unemployed the next day. When I was in elementary school, a permission slip from one of your parents was all that was required for the principal to bust your ass with a wooden paddle. Today you can't even make a kid sit in a corner for 5 minutes without facing the wrath of some over protective, under corrective parent.

 Last week 2 kids appeared on my block, brothers, a fat one and a thin one. Besides my girlfriends 13 year old daughter who lives with us, there are maybe 3 kids on our street, so when a couple of new ones turn up I tend to take notice. Let me clarify that last statement, when they turn up in my front yard I tend to notice. Last week wasn't the first time they decided to lounge in the middle of my yard, it was however the first time they showed up with crude yet pointy spears. The girlfriend and her daughter were away on vacation while I stayed home to tend to the dogs and work like a gubmint mule at my shitty contract job that doesn't allow for fancy shit like paid vacations.

I come home to find these two dirt magnets standing under the large Pin Oak in the center of my front yard. Now don't get me twisted, for all of my curmudgeonly grumbling, I'm not likely to get bent because a couple of kids happen to be in my yard. When they are armed with long makeshift spears, and when they are throwing said pointed sticks straight into the air overhead, totally ignorant of gravity, that's a whole different story. So I pull into the driveway, get out of the car and give em the fish eye, they don't miss a beat. They just ignored my presence and continue tossing their spears into the branches of the tree. The branches of a 40 foot pin oak are as thick as the under arm hair at a GLAAD convention. The spear hitting anything other than branches on the way up was pretty much nill. Returning to the ground was another story. Two thoughts go through my mind.
1. If I was them I'd cut and run.
2. Somebody is gonna put an eye out then sue the shit out of us because it happened in our yard.

The following transcript is a pretty accurate reflection of the conversation that followed.

Me...        "Hey, what are you guys doing"?
Fat Kid..."Trying to kill squirrels."
Me..        " How about you go kill em in your own yard"
Fat Kid..." You can't tell us what to do."
Me....      " How'd you like to limp home with that stick up your ass"?

That was pretty much the end of the conversation. The skinny kid, probably 10 or 11, and smarter by at least half, picked his bike up and scampered out of the yard. Fat boy, probably a year or so older, tried to stare me down. I figured I could take him.  I had at least 6 inches of reach and 50 pounds on him. Even with the spear and 40 years age difference, I figured if I got him to the ground I could knock him out before I got winded from the 30 years of Marlboro smoking. It was a Mexican standoff. The chubby little shit stared at me, I gave him my best prison yard mean mug, first one to blink loses. He blinked, I took two steps toward him, and he beat feet 2 doors up and ran inside. I heard him yelling "MOM" as he went through the door.

 Before some Mommy Blogger gets on here and reads me the riot act, of course I wouldn't ground and pound some fat 12 year old like we were having a MMA match. I would however take the water hose to him like it was Selma Alabama circa 1964. Just for the record the kid was white so no racism on the water hose comment. Besides, he looked like he hadn't seen a bath since the 3rd grade. After the admittedly insignificant and arguably petty on my part exchange, I half ass waited for the  pounding at my door that would mean either an outraged mother or the police. It never came.

There is a curse, usually your mother puts it on you when you are nearing Teen hood. It usually goes something like this," I hope you have a kid just like you when you grow up." I figure that curse extends to kids who aren't yours. I'm guessing all the fucked up shit you did as a kid will do a karmic boomerang on your ass at some point. Seems like just yesterday I was running through a creek bed. laughing my ass off while Old Man Konkel cussed us out in German for chucking rocks at him. Now the storm trooper boot is on the other foot. Instead of rocks, my tormentors come armed with spears. Instead of threatening them in German, I use a slight okie twang laced with prison slang. The more things change, the more they stay the same.