On country roads and teenage boys

Yesterday on the way to work I encountered one of the neighbor boys driving insanely fast on our dirt road. Knowing he was not doing the speed limit, which on a dirt road usually the safest max speed you can do is 35 (add at least 15 miles per hour to that for his speed) he grinned sheepishly and waved. I waved back and continued on. On the next rise, I came across one of the pieces of paraphernalia that had been rattling around in the back of his pickup--an Oxygen bottle. You know, one of those big green things that welders and people that can't breathe use? Oh yes, and the neighbors...who neither weld nor fail to breathe. His family blows up gopher mounds for a living, something that I will talk about soon. (Sounds like a good one, doesn't it?)Well, this bottle which weighs roughly 20 pounds, was laying in the middle of the road in front of another neighbor's house. The neighbor man was not happy, not happy indeed. It seems that our young neighbor boy from the OTHER side of our house had taken the corner by THIS neighbor's house in which the bottle now lay, sideways! He was ready to kick some butt! Anyhow, it seemed to resolve itself, I called the boy and his little brother answered, I told him that he should go get the oxygen bottle before the man came unglued, which had in all actuality pretty much happened. I also told him that his brother should be EXTRA careful in the neighborhood for a while. The younger boy came and got the bottle veeerrrry quietly. Later in the day, they saw a police officer drive down our road. He in actuality had nothing to do with them, but they think they are wanted men now.

I am going to let them think that for a good, long while.