I Didn't Want to Do This...But Had No Choice

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hallboy got a portable basketball hoop for Christmas two years ago, which he’s used about one time since then. It’s been in our small backyard, alone and abandoned since then until about two weekends ago. One of the girls next door asked if she could use it, and since I’d just planted grass seed in the back yard and it was coming up nicely (but still is new grass), I told her I would wheel the hoop into the alley and she and her friends could play there. We live in the city, and the alley is a fairly good place for the kids to play–not too much traffic, and what traffic there is tends to be slow and careful. Kids ride their bikes, etc. out there. There’s a park a few blocks away, with basketball hoops, but drug dealers tend to hang out there more than kids playing basketball, so it’s not a properly used park.

I left the basekball hoop out there (chained to the fence), and every day after school, there were kids playing. Sometimes it was a lone kid shooting hoops, and sometimes it was upwards of 10 or 12 kids playing. This past weekend, it got constant use.

Monday, the lady who lives in the house behind me knocked on my backdoor, complaining that the kids were sitting on her chainlink fence (some were) and throwing trash into her yard (some were) and cutting through her yard to get to the basketball hoop (some were), and that she “knows I meant to do something good”, but that there were kids in the alley that weren’t even from our neighborhood. She was right on all accounts. And, like any group of kids, they were noisy (but no more so than any other group of kids playing basketball).

So, in order to keep peace with the neighbor, I got rid of the basketball hoop, donating it to a small, inner city orivate school who really needed it. (Before any suggests bring it into my yard, there would be the issue of liability–there’s no way I want some kid to fall in my yard playing basketball and break an arm, and I’m liable for it!)

Yesterday afternoon (when the kids noticed it was gone), one of them knocked on my door, asking if they could play basketball. I recognized him as a good kid from our neighborhood, who was out there almost every afternoon playing basketball. I had to tell him that some of the kids were disrespectful to other people’s property (and briefly told him about the sitting on the fence, and cutting through the yard. etc.) and the crestfallen look on his face was horrible. It made me feel worse than I already did.

I feel like crap, like I just took away One Great Thing–which I actually did. I went through all the options in my mind before I got rid of the basketball hoop–moving it to another location (there really wasn’t anywhere else in the alley that neighbors wouldn’t have complained about the kids/noise, etc), telling the kids to stop the behavior (I couldn’t be out there all the time to monitor behavior). Now, it’s taking all I have not to pitch rotten fruit or something over the fence of the “mean neighbor” who made me get rid of the basketball hoop…

2

Can someone remind me why is it good to live in a world where you have to think about lawyers before doing something nice?

Between this and lissa’s recent story about that kid at the museum, I’m not sure if I’m more angry than sad or the other way around.

3

Couldn’t you have spoken to the kids first, about leaving trash around and sitting on the fence? You didn’t give them a chance to correct the behavior.

I would think a warning would have been in order before you just yanked the hoop without notice.

4

Further clarification…tell the neighbor you warned the kids, and if it happened again, to let you know and you would ban the kids from playing for a week or two. After that, banned permanently with a call to their parents.

It just seems unfair to punish the good kids for the bad kids’ mischief.

5

Oh, no doubt before you can say Tort Reform, some of our Doper attorneys will scamper in here and tell you with fingers a-waggin’ just exactly why you have to think of the laywers first. :frowning:

Unlike Lissa’s thread, this one is about a societal issue that is old as the hills. Those Darned Kids Who Don’t Keep Off Our Lawns And Make Noise. One suspects that teenagers in 251 B.C.E. suffered the same abuse from the Elders, but in Latin. Or Greek. Whatever.

I feel for that kid too- and I bet he ain’t the only one disappointed.

6

Ivylass, these are kids who will tell you to fuck off if you say to them, “Hey, you guys, you need to get off the neighbor’s fence.” These are kids who, when it’s 9:30 on a Friday night, and the streetlights have long come on and everyone else is at home, they are out outside, still roaming the neighborhood because their parents are drunk, not home, or simply don’t want to be bothered with their kids. These are the kids, if who were “banned” from using the basketball hoop would either jump the fence and simply play in the back yard (if it was moved), or would rip apart the basketball hoop when no one was around. Calling their parents? Ha. IF they have a phone, these are the parents who will (1) emphatically state that their kid would never commit an infraction, or (2) claim that’s not their kid, or (3) tell me to fuck off.

This is not white bread middle class America.

7

Just curious, where is the “armpit of Pennsylvania”? I would assume Fayette County, but that’s more small town/rural armpit, and you sound like you’re more in the city.

8

Harrisburg. In the city. Right in the city.

I feel like shit about having to get rid of it. Last night, one of the boys from the neighborhood knocked on the door to ask if he could use the basketball hoop. (I guess he figured we had it inside somewhere???) I had to tell him that because some of the kids were disrespectful towards the area, we had to get rid of it. (I told him about sitting on the neighbors fence, throwing trash in people’s yards, hanging jackets on the fence, so at least it was something specific, not something vague about being “disrespectful”.) It was difficult because I know he was one of the kids who typically is very respectful in his word and his actions (I’ve met his mom). He got a crestfallen look on his face and asked, “But where is it?”—like I’d hidden it around the corner. I explained that we had given it to a school.

I swear, I thought about ALL the options. There wasn’t anywhere that I could have moved it that someone wouldn’t have complained about the noise, the kids, the mess, whatever. I thought about hauling it to the church parking lot (which is around the corner), but I know the lady who lives in the house adjacent to the parking lot has complained about the kids playing on the parking lot if it was “too late”, so I suspect the basketball hoop (if the church would have approved) wouldn’t have gone over well.

Those kids were out there every single day playing with that basketball hoop, and I feel like shit because it’s gone. Yes, they were noisy, but not fighting, and not overly obnoxious. Yes, they probably were sitting on the fence (even after the neighbor told them not to), and they probably pitched trash over the fence (even though our trashcans were sitting right next to the hoop), but damn it, they were playing basketball, not spraying graffeti, or breaking windows, or picking fights. The night before I got rid of it, I went down about 8:00 that evening into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and looked out the back window. Two boys (about 13 or 14) were quietly playing with a piece of wadded up paper, shooting it through the net. If I hadn’t looked out the back window, I never would have known they were there.

I got a very nice thank you from the school, but still…what’s that saying? No good deed goes unpunished.

9

I feel your pain, phall. Basketball is tough, because it’s both (a) a great thing for kids to do, especially in a city, and especially kids who might otherwise be doing things they ought not to, and (b) incredibly loud and annoying for neighbours, no matter how quiet and respectful the players are.

It’s the sound of the bouncing ball. It’s irregular, piercing, and ceaseless. It really is impossible - or at least incredibly difficult - to sleep through. I can sleep through almost anything, but I was kept awake by a single kid shooting hoops in my neighbourhood in a house I once lived in.

I wish every kid in every city could play as much basketball as they wanted, I think the kids and their parents and the community and everyone else could only benefit.

EXCEPT for the intolerable and unbearable noise for the neighbours.

You are right. There is no easy answer.