Since moving into our residence here, two years ago at the end of this month, we have been overrun by “our gang,” of the same young “men” across our lawn, flower and vegetable gardens, as they play a “game” of their lofty imaginations of “base-ket-ball.” This is played like baseball, but with soccer balls or volleyballs bludgeoned by an aluminum bat. A few of these guys are nearly 7 feet tall. They all insist on playing in the street alongside our home, rocketing a ball over 100 feet, at times into my flowers and vegetables. It is only a matter of time until either my wife or I am blinded by shattering glass as a ball “accidentally” rockets through a window.

The fellows I am a bit familiar with are likeable guys. But they, and the remainder of “our gang,” have apparently suffered freezing of some capillaries in their brains by living here in the land of 10 good months of ice-skating and two months of slush? They, and their parents, are exercising vastly too few of their brain cells in this matter. I remain disappointed these young “men” have failed at least in some cases to finish raising their parents.

I have summoned the police several times. They seem paralyzed. “There is no ordinance prohibiting people from playing in the streets.” Why not? Since contacting the police, my vegetable garden has been vandalized many times. Now, these young “men” and their parents, I am confident, know that I had a heart attack and subsequent quadruple bypass surgery early last year, and celebrated my birthday last September with a stroke. I have suggested they either walk (eeeek!) a whole block away to a huge park to play, or even drive their cars all that way. But (eeek!) it’s a “tradition” to play in the street by our home. Well, we’re new kids who have come to regret moving into this hood, and indeed this city at all. I suggest to “the traditionalists”: If any of them can have the prohibitions by national law lifted on dueling with firearms in the streets, any or all can give me a jingle here in Nova Norway, and we’ll meet in the street loaded and rock and roll. I faced people with loaded firearms during the civil rights movement when I was about their age. I held my ground. I still will, if they challenge me. Perhaps they would prefer extending us a modicum of civility and human courtesy?

The father of one of the young men involved serves as an officer on our police force. The stepfather of one young man has an uncle who retired about five years ago from the police force. Additionally, his mother, as I have also recently learned, has a brother on the city council. We need assurances we are protected, with at least ordinances forbidding this sort of activity. Maybe something like, “malicious mischief,” “endangerment to people and property,” “creating hazardous conditions to private property, residents, and vehicular traffic.”

Rick Mammel

Albert Lea