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The Mean Old Grouch

One place we lived for a short time had a man living across the street that had to be the meanest person alive. There were old people around who were hard to get along with, and generally they would just ignore you, so long as you did not provoke them in any way. Not this guy. If a kid was anywhere in his sight, that was enough to provoke him and we had maybe twenty kids living in just that one block. We did not live there for much more than a month as I recall, but during that time, this guy had called the police maybe a dozen times. He was unreasonable in general, and where kids were concerned, he was outright vicious and mean. It seemed he was forever yelling at some kid, and the only thing the kid ever did was to be alive.

Well, a few days before we moved from that apartment it was Halloween. Trick or treat time, right? Well, some of the medium size kids would watch out for the little kids to be sure they didn't go near this guys house. Everybody stayed away from his place. He had his shades drawn, but if you watched closely, you could see the shades move and then see him peaking out. The night went on for a while, and then three older boys came on the scene. They were maybe fifteen or sixteen. They told the smaller kids to go and hide for a while; they were going to do something to that old crab. All the small kids (me included) ducked out of site.

The bigger boys then went to work. What they had done was to get a plain paper grocery bag, a sack if you will, and in the bag they put several of the mushiest, foulest smelling dog turds that they could find. Then they sneaked up onto this guy's wooden porch, and set the bag down near the door. Then, one of the boys lit a match and set the paper bag on fire while the other boy rang the doorbell and yelled "trick or treat". The two boys then scrambled off the porch and went to a hiding place where they could watch. The shades were drawn in the house, but you could see this guy's shadow on the shades as he moved across the room. When he opened the door he had a stick in his hand. When he saw the fire, he dropped the stick and started stamping out the fire with his feet. He was yelling and stomping. He swore at the kids he knew were out there but that he could not see. When his wife came out he had the fire just about out. You could see the two of them at first talking, then shouting at one another. What it came down to was he had to take his stinky shoes off and leave them on the porch, or she wouldn't let him in the house. "I'm going to call the police", he yelled, then he went inside.

I give that trio of older boy's a lot of credit, they sure had nerve. As soon as the old man was out of sight, one of them tip toed onto the porch and took his shoes. Then they threw his shoes on top of his own roof. The shoes were still there a couple days later when we moved. And by the way, the police never did show up that night.

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