The neighborhood kiddos were play on the street until late last night, probably having one last hurrah before school starts. Even though I haven’t been any kind of school for a decade now, I’m strangely glad that school is starting back up this week.

There are a lot of kids in my neighborhood. From my estimation, my neighbor across the street has 7 or 8 kids, my neighbor next door has 4, the one two doors down has 5 (or 6?), you get my point, a lot of kids.

Over the last year or so, I’ve had some strange interactions with these kids. First, one of them passed me and said “Konnichiwa,” Japanese for hello. Perhaps it’s because I look Asian? Then another time, one of the kids came up to me and called me, “ma’am.” Inside, I thought, do I look old enough to be called ma’am?

Do you know one of their favorite places to play?

My driveway.

I asked one of the older kids once, “Why? Why my driveway?” He told me it’s got the perfect slope. So they would bike up and down my driveway, especially the warmer months. No, not a hazard at all. Except it is because what if I decided to go out? Or my mom decided she wants to go out?

About a week ago, I caught those kids throwing the rocks in my front garden like they were baseballs. My mom had wondered why she would always find rocks on the sidewalk or in the middle of her brother’s driveway. I was a bit puzzled myself until one night, as I was about to lock the gate to the back garden when I saw a rock soar through my apple tree.

Immediately, I ran back out into the front garden, trying to catch whoever did that. Piercing screams filled the air as I saw a group of around a dozen kids sprinting toward the other end of the street, at a speed which I could never catch up. There were rocks all over the sidewalk and scattered about my uncle’s driveway. An older kid stood on the driveway next door, crossed arms, staring at me, unafraid. “Please do not throw my rocks around,” I said, “they are my personal property.”

“Sorry,” was all he said. I felt like I was expecting more but what was I expecting? These are just kids, raised in an age where forms of communication are either short-hand texts or emojis and where they all have a palm-size computer by the time they hit pre-teen. Resigned, I stalked back into my back garden and crossed my fingers that no further harm will come to my front garden.