Justin and Jedi, Shooting Bottle Rockets in the Wrong Place!

Our yard is a 3-acre corner lot parallel to Old Highway 68, which is a main road that runs just outside the city limits of Sweetwater. When I say just outside the city limits I mean the city line runs through our yard. So, there is a local Tavern called the "Stop In" just across the upper portion of our yard, it is in clear view, definitely within walking distance. This Tavern is close enough that you just jump the ditch, cross the road and you are there. Over the years we had the unique opportunity to get a front seat to many highly publicized events involving the city and county police departments. There was one Saturday that I remember Justin had his friend Jedi spend the night and they had been outside for quite a while before Mike became alarmed because he heard some of the tavern customers shouting at the boys in a threatening manner. Pre-teen boys can really get into some sticky situations when they are outside playing and there aren't adults around to watch them. Mike quickly ran to the upper corner of our yard to find that Justin and Jedi had built themselves a makeshift fort in our yard that was parallel to the tavern's front porch. He watched for just a few minutes as the boys were shooting bottle rockets left over from the Fourth of July straight through the porch and front door of the Tavern to the inside. Yes, there were some pissed-off drunks ready to get even with our boys for doing that. I do understand that they were upset and that someone could get hurt. But these are 10-year-old boys doing this and these grown men were not about to whip our kids. Mike ran up there and proceeded to reason with these guys who were more than a little upset. These dudes were drunk and ready to fight. Mike told them, "look man, these are just kids and they should not have been doing this but you are not going to fight these kids, these are my boys and I will take care of this situation." Well, the drunks mouthed off a few extra special words intended for the boys and then backed off.

Mike made the boys say they were sorry and then helped them tear down the fort. Then they all came inside to watch movies for the rest of that day. Needless to say, that event was the highlight of our Saturday afternoon.