My neighborhood is a bit of an anomaly. As the location of the cheapest real estate during the boom years prior to our current economic malaise, it's got a real mix of characters. There are those like me, who wanted to get into the game. Buying the cheap spec houses,or cheap trailers, or building (in my case) modest homes. Then there are the renters of nice small homes built by Realtors looking to make a sustained buck. But, there are still more trailers than homes, occupied by equal parts, air-condition-preserved retirees, and the closest thing America has to slum-dwellers. The former religiously keeping indoors and to themselves, and the latter living life in the street, and often in other people's yards.
I'd say the majority of occupants of the Modge (the affectionate shortening of Colington Harbor's Modular Section) rent. Therefore, they don't exactly oppose the local hood rats, or street toughs, as my wife calls them, wandering through their yards. As long as cars, houses and belongings are spared more than a passing glance, trespassing has been largely ignored.
The problem is that harmless daylight wandering becomes evening and night time vandalism and petty theft. To be clear, most of these kids are under twelve, and fall into the vandal category. The only thing they've ever taken from me is plywood scraps to build skateboard ramps. Granted it was in the dead of night, or while I was at work, and it was without permission, but I may have deserved it. First, I didn't lay out ground rules, the first time I "donated" plywood, and second, the underside of the house was definitely cluttered enough that I didn't notice anything was missing. I just noticed really familiar looking pieces of plywood littering the sides of the road on my way home.
At times, things have gotten serious. Local street toughs have pilfered the beer fridge in the garage, and I'm sure would have nabbed bikes or surfboards, had they not gotten joyfully drunk on my Sam Adams.
So, we are wary, and don't mind giving a toung lashing to the odd vagrant we encounter inside the gates. Today though, I blew it. Deanna tipped me off to some little footsteps coming up the drive while she was occupied feeding Quinn. I heard a band of vagrants rounding the house and jumped out into the side yard and gave them a gruff HEY! What are you doing!!! . . .
. . .Selling raffle tickets was the choral reply of the two young girls, aged seven and nine.
Oooops!! What's worse is Angel, the youngest, I met before. She expressed deep interest in Quinn on one of our walks. She said something along the lines of, "Hey mister, can I say hello to your baby?" I said sure and she gently caressed Quinn's palm. I said, "This is Quinn and I'm Marc, what's your name?"
"I'm Angle, but I'm not allowed to talk to you because you are a stranger, but if you ever come walking by here, I'd like to see Quinn again, I'm here all the time."
I left that first conversation thinking, I hope I have chance to let this girl know that I'm a positive force in the Modge. So, jumping out from behind my house and shouting Hey! was probably not the best course of action.
I did buy raffle tickets, and invited Deanna and Quinn out for a meet and greet. That seemed to relieve some of the tension.
Lesson learned, even in the hood, street toughs must be taken on a case by case basis!
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