McGee: Sometimes it's best not knowing

When I was a kid, my pals and I had the run of the neighborhood. We ran through front yards, we wore paths through backyards. The neighbors didn’t seem to mind.

Maybe they did but they didn’t say anything.

Then somebody new moved into the neighborhood.

One day as we were dashing across his front yard he stormed out his front door yelling, “You kids, you daggone kids, get out of my daggone yard.”

“Daggone” wasn’t the term he used but it’ll do for a family newspaper.

We never crossed his yard again.

Then there was the time while camping with my Boy Scout troop we decided to take a hike along a trail that lead out of our camp. After a couple of miles of walking through the woods we came to a fence. We crossed it and soon we were standing at an open field with a big log cabin way on the other side.

We were turning back when we heard voices. We looked back and there were people on the cabin porch yelling at us. Someone stepped out of the cabin carrying something long and dark.

“Boys,” I said. “That looks like a shotgun.”

Two men leapt from the porch and ran across the field yelling at us.

“I think they’re saying, ‘Get off our land,’” said one of the scouts.

We took off running.

We crossed back over the fence. Soon the men got to the barbed wire and stopped.

One WAS carrying a shotgun.

“Y’ALL GET ON OUTTA HERE,” said the man with the shotgun. “AND DON’T COME BACK.”

I’ve often wondered about that encounter from time to time, about why someone needed a shotgun to chase off a few Boy Scouts.

But then, there’s still a lot of stuff in life I wonder about.

GrantMcGee is a long-time broadcaster and former truck driver who rides bicycles and likes to talk about his many adventures on the road of life. Contact him through his blog at: grantmcgeewrites.com.