BUT IT'S SO PRETTY ACROSS THE STREET!

The kids finished school in June, Connor finishing Third Grade and Lauren finishing Fifth. It was a pretty good year. Lauren was finishing elementary in the L.A. school system and would be gong into middle school the next September. We didn’t think we’d be there in September, but we filled out the paperwork anyway, just in case. Being in the magnet program meant that if we hadn’t filled it out, she would have to go to the home school, which was just down the block and we didn’t like that. We didn’t like the kids we saw coming out of that school.

Maybe the kids around the corner WERE just kids. Maybe kids are just kids and I’ve read enough to know that kids in the 30’s, 40s and 50s, 60s and so one really weren’t THAT different than kids are today. Perhaps the language was coarser, perhaps not. One has to think that kids who grew up in an agrarian world were better informed on sex and that kids who were a few years away from the draft probably either knew cuss words they’d learned from their older, already-drafted brothers, or that they would learn them in short order. I’m POSITIVE they knew and used a lot more racial epithets. Probably more colorful and descriptive ones, too.

But I didn’t live around the corner from those kids. And those kids weren’t packed into a school with an ever-expanding enrollment and static building who, when loosed at the end of the day, exploded into the neighborhood like a bunch of – um – ah—kids.

There had been a couple of HUGE fights in the field across the street. One on a Tuesday[1] at about one PM. I was walking through the living room and saw a large throng[2] of kids gathered near one of the power towers. I heard yelling and I’m not too old to know what it sounds like when a fight is going on. I am too old to get involved in one, though. I picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1 and I heard…

“I’m sorry. All circuits are busy. Please try your call again later.”

What? On a TUESDAY afternoon? What was going on? Had someone bombed the police station? Had a two-car pile up on PCH turned into a massive chain-reaction accident?

I never found out. So whatever it was, it wasn’t even big enough to make the papers. I called the school and they sent over one of their “officers”[3] who broke up the fracas.

Yeah, kids’ll fight. But kids’ll also not know when to stop.

I had a similar experience with the LA 9-1-1 system about a year earlier. I had picked Connor up from some birthday party and as I was driving him home, I saw what looked like a homeless man head butt what looked like a homeless woman.

Now here was a situation where, even being the pussy I am, I would have jumped in. I’d done it before[4], but I had Connor with me and it didn’t seem a good idea.

So I called 9-1-1. I gave them a good description and told them just where it was and then I drove home.

About forty-five minutes later I was in the backyard with Connor when my cell phone rang.

“Hi, this is Los Angeles police dispatch. Did you call to report a man and woman fighting?”

“Yes.”

“Well, are they still fighting? Officers just got there and…”

Christ. In forty-five minutes he could have planned a murder, committed the murder and disposed of the body, too!

There were other things with the kids and the field across the street, too. Things that bothered me, but didn’t seem to bother anyone else in the neighborhood. I once had to tell some kids to stop bouncing a soccer ball off the front of the house. They took affront at this. There were people who parked their cars there to take spiffy pictures and, in spite of the “No Trespassing” signs that were everywhere, there were people trespassing. I wouldn’t get upset as a few kids playing ball, but when people began showing up with TEAMS of kids for practices or games, that was a bit much. It wasn’t a park and there was no place for them to put their cars. So sometimes on a Saturday or a Monday evening[5] the street would be lined on both sides with cars, leaving only one lane. Once, early on a Saturday morning, we heard the usual slamming of cars doors.

But this time it kept up and up and up. When we looked out, both sides of the street and around the corners were parked full of cars and at least a hundred people were on the field.

And they stayed there.

We kept out heads down and didn’t go anywhere – it would have been merely impossible to get out of the driveway, anyway. We put up with it for two hours and when it didn’t look like it was going to end, we called the cops.

The police showed up quickly.

And then they went away.

But the throng stayed.

I called the dispatch back and was told that the officers were told that it was a church group who had permission to be there from the owners.

Of course, I called the owners of the property, the Department of Water and Power, the next Monday and no one had given permission for anything like this. Of course, there was no one to call on Saturday and my favorite thing they asked was:

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

And my second favorite thing was:

“Well, who gave permission for this?”

As you may guess, I was at a loss for words.

And once again, just so I don’t sound like the cranky “Hey you kids get off my lawn!” guy[6], it’s not the one time or even the fifth time something like this happens that gets on my nerves. It’s the regularity of it.

It really wasn’t even that. There were a bunch of guys that showed up every Thanksgiving to play touch football. I never called the cops on them[7].

When the groups of kids started to play touch football, I didn’t call the cops. It was when the groups swelled to over thirty, they were there for hours, left trash all over the place AND they started playing on our lawns and dancing in the street that I really got upset.

Yes. Dancing[8]. In the street. With music.

It all looks well and good in “West Side Story” or a video[9], but after the first three hours, it gets a little old.

The thing that really got me is that no one else seemed bothered by it.

It really wasn’t that unusual an occurrence. I once saw a fat woman in shorts and a maidenform dancing to music from her car in the parking lot of a department store[10]. And I don’t think anyone did anything about that. Sometimes you’d see kids break into dancing outside a music store[11], but on your street?

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[1] Those of you who have been keeping notes will recognize this as an early release day.

[2] That’s “throng”, not “thong”

[3] More about this later.

[4] And come to think of it, I’d never had to do something like that before I moved to California. Perhaps it’s having an ocean on the other side that does it.

[5] Who came up with the idea of youth soccer practicing on Monday evenings? And is one practice a week enough? You don’t want them to over practice, but my kids can’t remember what I told them the day before, let alone a week before.

[6] Though I hope to become one.

[7] Partially because they were freaking PATHETIC. A bunch of fat guys who you know didn’t make the team. And that’s coming from a guy who was freaking’ PATHETIC when we made the team.

[8] When I was in high school, guys who danced I public were often tarred and feathered. And that was in the school gym.

[9] I was searching for a proper reference, but the David Bowie/Mick Jagger collaboration was the only thing that came to mind and that made me feel old.

[10] And the anti-psychotics have done nothing to erase this memory.

[11] And there are hardly any of those anymore.

Entire contents copyright 2009 by Shaun McLaughlin