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PatchWork
by Joyce Whitis |
Hoodlum
Somewhere in the general vicinity of County Road 419, there lives a hoodlum! At least he does things that would make anybody think he is a hoodlum.
Oh there are a lot of choice titles we'd like to bestow upon this person but somehow the word that means ruffian, street rowdy, young tough, or thug to my own mind suits him best. Listen to the list of stuff he's done and see what you think he ought to be called.
Within the past year this thug has beat up our 40 year old mailbox, and smashed our neighbor's box into a metal pancake atop it's post. He has littered the ditches with beer cans and cold drink bottles. He has flung out cardboard boxes, Styrofoam hamburger containers, and oceans of blue Wal-Mart plastic bags. Mostly the blue bags fly up and are caught on the strands of a "Bob" wire fence, where they wave in any slight breeze.
This young ruffian half filled our new mailbox with gravel and the broken brown glass of a beer bottle. Then later he drove by and delivered a mighty whack to one side of the box, preventing anybody from closing the door to the box so that any shower soaks the bills and those letters from Publisher's Clearing House with my winning number inside.
I can't absolutely prove it but I believe this tough guy carries a pick ax with him and ever so often, stops and digs out dangerous holes in our road. That's the only way I know to explain how all those pot holes got there. When he's not busy digging out those holes that make driving this gravel road so rough, he stops ever so often and holds the fences down so cows and calves can cavort along the ditch further creating a driving hazard.
Of course, with a ruffian like this guy around, you'd expect to have road signs disappear and stop signs pushed over or shot full of holes. This past week, the little stunts this person pulls, got more serious.
When I turned onto the paved road that morning, I saw that he'd pushed over the stop sign again. He'd really done a good job this time and actually ran completely over the sign jerking it out of the ground along with a big chunk of concrete around the metal post. I got out and looked at the tire tracks which were very plain because of the mud. Judging from the spot on the post where the bumper hit, the vehicle was at ton pickup with four wheel drive, probably with a heavy duty bumper guard to prevent damage to the truck. It wasn't a dooley however since there was just a single set of tracks. Apparently the criminal just ran right over the sign and pulled onto the highway. I considered making a plaster cast of those tracks but instead went on with my day's business.
A couple of hours later, on my way home, I became horrified as I passed the uprooted stop sign. He had added the cardboard package that comes with a case of Natural Light beer to the muddy tire tracks, and next to it was the red carcass of some freshly skinned animal. I pulled over and got out.
The front legs of the poor critter, which had been something about the size of a very large housecat or a small dog had been broken off and the right side of the jaw smashed. The tail had been cut off and the only fur left on the animal was a small amount of gray on each back foot. I made a guess that what I was looking at had once been a small gray fox hunting for rabbits in the woods.
Lately there have been newspapers, empty beer cans, and cardboard cartons tossed out around the stop sign.
Hoodlum? Yes I think that name just about fits.