This isn't the post I was going to publish

The post I was going to publish was going to take someone to task for being a fucking asshole prick, but my brother Ross counseled against it. So instead I'll tell a story about one time when I was a fucking asshole prick.

Up the street from where I grew up lived the Zettlemeyers. They're probably long since dead by now, having moved away to where all the Old Jews go probably 25 years ago, and they were ancient then.

Mr. Zettlemeyer was a kindly old guy who I would talk to from time to time - if he ever got tired of my 7-year-old self he never showed it. He'd sit and wash his car while I chewed his ear off with whatever 7-year-old bullshit was going through my mind and pretend to pay attention. In short, he was a nice enough gentleman who never showed me a drop of ill will and whom I was on fair terms with, as neighborhood coots go.

They had a garden in their side yard, a fairly extensive one, in which the Zetts grew pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, and other standard garden vegetables. Well, one fine day I got it in my head that it would be great fun to smash a few pumpkins on the street, and I knew just the place to get them.

And I proceeded to do just that. My friend Dave P_____ and I absolutely fucking stomped through the Zettlemeyer's garden - destroyed every living thing in it. The street was a glorious mess - it was a veritable gourd abattoir - and Dave and I were breathless and red-cheeked from the pure fun that we were having.

Until we got busted.

We didn't get caught by Mr Zettlemeyer, or Mrs. Zettlemeyer, but from the teenage kid in the house next to theirs. I don't remember his name but his house was green and I think maybe his last name was Laurie or Lowrie. He was a readhead, I remember that.

He didn't yell, he didn't punk out, he didn't dime us out. He spoke to us quietly - and in doing so burned the memory into my brain such that it still glows bright, even today.

"What'd you do that for?" he asked with real bewilderment in his voice. "It's not just a hobby - they grew that garden to eat that food. Now they're going to have to pay for a summer's worth of vegetables that you guys ruined."

In an instant the selfishness and the stupidity of what we did hit me hard, like a rifle recoiling in my chest. My cheeks were still red, not from running around in the crisp of an Autumn afternoon but now from searing-hot embarrassment and shame for what I had done.

They were a couple of old people on a fixed income who grew a garden to offset the cost of feeding themselves, for Christ's sake, and I took it upon myself to ruin a summer's worth of work singlehandedly. And not two strangers either; people whose name I knew, who knew me and who had no problem when I'd meander over and spend time with them.

That kid never did rat us out. Maybe he saw that he didn't have to. I kind of wish he did - that way I'd have apologized to them, which I never did. To their graves they probably went not knowing which neighborhood bastard punk trashed their garden in a horrible, useless, ridiculous spree of vandalism.

If any of you reading this ever had a relation named Zettlemeyer (or any phonically equivalent alternate spelling like Zeddlemeier, for instance) who lived in Peabody, Massachusetts in the mid 70's, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry your parents or grandparents or Aunt and Uncle or cousin had to shamefacedly clean up the street in front of their house from the remains of their garden. I'm sorry they had to spend extra money that they probably didn't have to buy vegetables and tomato sauce that didn't taste nearly as good as the stuff Dave and I so thoughtlessly destroyed.

If it's any cosolation, it's a lesson I've carried with me all this time, one that I'll never forget as long as I live.