Friday, September 3, 2010

Flashback Friday # 103




The New Kids On The Block


Greeting to all who have stumbled upon my ramblings. In today's post I introduce you to some of my least favorite neighbors that I had while growing up. The Crook family.


As most of you know, I very seldom use any one's real name in this blog. This is no exception. Usually I will make a synonym that resembles the real name. This time I just used the adjective that describes them best.


You've heard of people having stick fingers? These kids whole bodies were sticky. If it was small enough to be palmed or stuck in a pocket, it was gone.


What's worse, I had an infatuation with the oldest Pershing girl who lived next door. When the Crooks moved in, she fell head over heels in love with Sneaky Crook, the second oldest. (there was also Justa Crook who was oldest, Rotten Little Crook, and the youngest Crummy Crook. All were boys with ages ranging from 14-6)


While Sir Gattabout was in basic training, Mom bought him some lighters and put them in a drawer in the kitchen. Shortly before he came home on leave, they were gone, and Justa had some exactly like the ones that came up missing. Coincidence?


Spare change that accumulated in cup & jars around the house disappeared. Small tools walked away. We had never had to lock our doors prior to that (my how times have changed). Dad told me to lock the door prior to going to school. We had a special hiding place for the key.


Guess who found the key? Dad went into town and bought new locks for the doors. He gave me a key to carry (my first). Even though we changed the lock & locked the doors, things still came up missing. I then heard through the grapevine that they had discovered Gattabout's route into the upstairs window. All the windows then got locks installed on them.


The big kicker was one Saturday I went outside and my bike was gone. The chain that held it was still there, but no bike. Mom's bike was gone too. As I went out to the street to see if I could see anyone riding them, around the corner came Sneaky & Rotten Little on our bikes. The pulled in the driveway and said they had hoped to get the bikes back before anyone noticed them missing. They had picked the padlock and took the bikes out for a joyride. I told them that under no circumstances were they to take the bikes without permission. They didn't see what I was so upset about.


You couldn't say anything to their parents because they both had the opinion that if you leave something so that someone else can take it, you're just out of luck. Dad said if he ever caught them in the house, he would call the sheriff and press charges to the full extent of he law.


Fortunately, they only lived next to us for two years.


Did you ever have any neigbors like this?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had a neighbor who did not like anyone parking on the street in front of their house. The street I lived on that was only one side you could park on. This neighbor had their own driveway and barn to park their car. So we and some other neighbors found a non running car and put it in front of their house. They did not stay long after that.

Mistie

Lavender Chick said...

I didn't have any neighbors like that in terms of my neighborhood; but, I did have neighbors like that in my lockerhood (the lockers at my school). Somehow my locker was always broken into and anything in there was a free for all. If I didn't carry it with me, it was gone. Those same people that were stealing from me now want to be my friend on facebook. Go figure....