This story is from a friend of a friend of mine….
When I was a wee bairn there was a housing development nearby our home. Like all half-built buildings and other clearly dangerous areas, it had great allure to the neighbourhood children. While my friends and I never trespassed onto the unfenced sight there were many that did. Thus started the kid vs construction war.
I don’t blame the construction workers for being upset by the trespassing. It was dangerous and if someone got badly injured the construction company would likely be held at fault. I do however find fault with how the workers decided to act.
The opening volleys
The housing project backed up onto a local park that a lot of kids cut through to get to school. That part of the project was still under heavy landscaping the kind you need a backhoe or excavator for, so there were lots of heavy vehicles scattered about. Whenever the constructions workers would see kids passing by they would swear at us and yell insults. Being the studious types that we were, we of course reciprocated in kind. Then they started throwing rocks.
As we all know sticks and stones may break our bones and stoke the cold blue fire of vengeance. I think that’s how it goes anyway. Once the workers started throwing stones it was gloves off, not only were the rocks painful but avoiding the park meant we had to wake up earlier and get home later. Unexceptibru!
This dish was pure ice
Our method of escalation was simple. Part of the fence for this section of the project had a big rock overhanging it and a couple of kids could easily fit under the overhang. Hidden under this rock we could start digging. It took a few days but eventually, we could slip under the fence. The next night after everyone had gone home we snuck in through our hole and surveyed the area. There were lots of big pits and mountains of dirt. There were also several construction vehicles on hand. Out of pure curiosity, we inspected the cabs of the vehicles and found that every single one had their keys in them. There was a brief heated discussion about taking one for a spin and the counterpoint of how loud they were and that we would definitely be caught, before we settled on our course of action. We would take all of the keys and bury them in the project.
With the keys buried and curfew approaching, we scurried back under the fence and kicked the dirt back into the hole to cover our tracks. Justice served we all headed home. I have no idea if what we did ultimately affected anything or not. After our brief flirtation with criminality, we ended up avoiding the park for a while. We figured (and TV told us it was true) that being guilty we would have to avoid the scene of the crime because that’s how the police catch you. In the end, no one ever caught us and the construction workers stopped throwing rocks, more than likely due to a parent complaining but of course we thought it was because of us. Hail Mary and hallelujah the war was won.