But I can tell you people, they were the devil's children

And after all that I forgot my "issue of the day".

We did go for a ride last night and I made a mile and a half with no breaks and did the hill in granny gear getting home ok. The five speed I have been using is almost right for me now that the mate has tweeked it. He put knobbies on it for me last week but I couldn't try them out, the horsie bashed up my knee and I was off the bike for almost a week. But my thighs didn't cramp and my knees only creeeeeked a little at the end of two miles. I am gettting stronger. Pitiful - but stronger than I was this spring.

We topped the little rise before the house and I see four bikes and four boys at the end of our driveway. The mate doesn't like people at his house when he isn't there and the one boy has a rep as a thief at the young age of 12 ish, I'm sorry to say. So he picked up the tempo and drove his bike right into the middle of them.

Now I am lagging behind. By the time I pull in, park and walk over to see what is going on the bad rep boy is behind the mate in our yard and the others just turned and left. He says he didn't even say anything, they just left.

That leaves just the bad rep boy. I see he has a gun across his handle bars. This is bad. I asked him what was going on and I get this long story about how he accidently pointed his gun, it was empty, see? and he cocks it and shoots it at the ground, bb gun at their dog, well it was his grama's dog, no, she's his great grama.....and it was her dog, not their dog but they chased him down to beat him up and would I give him a ride home? They would be after him and he was afraid.

Out of this garbled account I gather he has managed to tick of three boys bigger than him. And that made it three on one no matter what the real story was. And he happened to be riding the one speed the mate and I had given him.

I held out my hand and said, "Give me the gun," which he did. Just then a state trooper's car drove past the house. "You know he is looking for you, don't you?" I said has I gave him a stern look. All of a sudden he said he could ride home, could he have his gun back?

'No, I think I want to meet your Mom,' I told him. He booked off for home and I jumped in the truck with the gun. He only lives a block over and a block down but he went for a house across the street...I'm still confused about that. There was the trooper, in the driveway and just getting out of his car. Here came a couple from the house where I thought he lived and then an old guy from the next block over wandered in from across the yard behind the house we were headed for. I pulled up on the side of the road and got out. Then the second state cop car pulled up behind us.

"You ok, here?" I heard him call out through the window.

"Yup, it's just a BB Gun," he replied.

Now last week you will remember that there were six non residents trying to hold up the store with a gun. Everyone here is a little edgy. I know someone called it in because the kids had a gun and no adult with them.

I explained that I was just a neighbor and had taken the gun so he could get home safe from the kids chasing him. I handed the gun to the Mom. She said thank you. I explained they were upset because he pointed the gun at the dog. I also explained that we had had kids shoot bb's at our dogs and that a kid with a gun NOT in his own yard would be reported by me, too.

The kid was crying rivers before the cop even had his book flipped open. It was all and accident, he didn't mean to point it at the dog and the cop said, "Where did you get the gun?" The boy said a name and then the mom said, "You told me you got it from X!" and the kid back pedaled and stammered and cried harder and I knew the little brat was lying his butt off, it was none of my business now that his folks were there so I left.

I really want to talk to that kid. I want to know why he already lies when the truth would work better. I want to help him see that lying is just going to get him in deeper. But it's none of my business.

The weather turned nasty here today and I can't even feel afraid of it, it's "just" severe thunderstorms. Hail, Rain and Wind. But our roofs should stay on and our houses should stand. We needed the rain badly, anyway.

The mate calls and gives me 10 or 20 minutes of warning when it gets black over there so I can turn off the computer and unplug. We almost always get our power popped when it storms where I work. He keeps me from blowing up the hard drive and modem. He is so thoughtful!

I appreciated the info Dan left me in the comments and I always appreciate the input of Fred and Anvil. I have had some new commentors this week and that has been fun. I always check out their blogs and say thank you there or here. Thanks to all of you that have helped identify flowers and voice opinions.

I should be leaving here just as the weather goes all the way nasty by the looks of the local doppler - I wonder where I left the umbrella this time?