Herman

When I was little, Herman and his wife Thea moved their little house in the country right next door to our family.   Herman and Thea had no children, so they probably should have thought twice before moving next door to a family with 9 kids!    I'm sure Herman was a nice enough man, but he did not have much tolerance for children.   He was constantly  watching to make sure we didn't step onto his yard.  There were times that I went over there and visited with his wife out on the front steps.   I surely had to step on his grass to do so, but he never said anything to me...I now wonder if he was inside, gritting his teeth!   Anyway, you can imagine with a bunch of kids and their friends, there was plenty of playing out in the yard.  Herman had a beautiful garden in the back yard so we would usually play in the front yard to (hopefully) avoid his wrath!   If we happened to cross the property line, we would hear "Hey, you!  Keep off of my yard!!"   Often, we would play catch, and if the ball rolled onto his yard, we did not dare go and retrieve the ball.  Over the years, this happened more than once.    One time we decided to trick Herman - we made a snow/ice ball and tossed it into his yard.  (Weren't we nasty!?)   We didn't see if Herman went to pick up the "ball" or not, but we were pretty proud of our little trick! As the years went by, we no longer played ball in the front yard.  Years later, when Herman's health was failing, he called our Mom to send my brother over.   You can imagine the surprise when Herman handed Jim a bag of balls!  (The snow/ice ball was not included.)  I guess this was Herman's way of apologizing, or making amends!   He died shortly after that.