I had what I consider to be a wonderful childhood. We either lived on a farm or in small towns. That meant we had a lot of freedom to run, play, and explore.
We were normal children. We were loud and occasionally did things we were not supposed to do. And like any children we could be annoying.
We were living in a small town. The school was one block away and across the train tracks. The stores were about three blocks away. Church was on the next corner.
Our neighbor next door was a grouchy man. I do not know if he had family. I was too young to care and no one ever visited him.
All I knew was that he was always yelling at us to be quiet. Stay off his grass!
One afternoon we saw him get in his car and drive away. We became evil.
I am the oldest so it was probably my idea. He kept his house key under the mat at his front door. We ran over and got the key.
We ran to the edge of his well-manicured lawn and placed the key on the ground. We pulled a few handfuls of grass to put over it. That way we could find it later to tease him with.
Later in the afternoon we woke up from a nap to the sound of the neighbor mowing his lawn!
When he finished he made a beeline to our house. He was furious that his house key was gone. He just knew we did it and he wanted it back.
We dutifully went to the side of his lawn to get it for him. We could not find it. The clump of grass had been removed by the lawn mower.
My parents told us to keep looking for the key. I remember that it was starting to get dark. We still had not found it. As a matter of fact we never did.
Great plan. Too bad it went south.
ReplyDeleteWay south.
DeleteI am fascinated by your childhood stories dear Emma
ReplyDeleteI am grateful that I could live such life as well when I was little 🥰
But unlike you I was too bore and would forbid my friends from such naughty ideas 😂
I wonder how they kept me in the group 😅
I found the story amusing but yes it went wrong for your neighbour man 🙂
We were punished too. It was a valuable lesson that did not cause any severe problems. We were usually well-behaved but there were moments... I am ashamed to say a lot of them were my idea.
DeleteAs the saying goes, the best laid plans...often go bad as this one surely did, Emma. Did the neighbor get much grouchier that this incident?
ReplyDeleteOf course he did. I do not know whether he had offspring. I never saw anyone visit him. Perhaps he simply did not understand children. But we were not sophisticated enough to wonder why he acted the way he did.
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