Call Me Mrs. Lavenka

For those of you that don't recognize the reference above, here's a little background.

When my siblings and I were growing up, we spent a lot of time at Grandma's house. That's just what people did back then. There were a lot of adults visiting at Grandma's house and even more kids. Back in the days before Wii, before the Internet and even before cable TV, what kids did was played outside. If you were a kid and you played outside on 11th Street in front of Grandma's, chances were good that you got yelled at on a regular basis by Mrs. Lavenka.

Mrs. Lavenka was about 1,000 years old, and we thought she lived just to yell at kids. She would yell if you were on her grass, close to her grass, or even thinking about being anywhere near her grass!

Now I am an adult. I have a house. My house comes with a lot of grass. This property is actually on two lots. The first lot on the corner is all grass, and the second lot is where the house sits. So, there is a lot of grass.

The kids across the street, their family and their friends and for all I know their friends' families all like to play in my yard! In this litigious society, I don't want 20 kids playing football in my yard. That's all I need, to be sued because someone broke their leg on my property.

If my property were the only green space these kids had to play, I might be able to work something out with them. BUT, there are two city parks, each only one block away. One is one block to the south and one is one block to the west of me. If you have enough energy to be out there playing football, you have enough energy to take your butts one block to a park and play football.

Twice now, the last being Sunday, I was outside yelling at the kids! I think I've turned into Mrs. Lavenka! If you listen closely, you can hear her in my voice yelling . . .

HEY YOU KIDS! GET OFF OF MY GRASS!!