Happenings in the hood.

Another interesting incident happened on our street last Friday. We were out of town for the day getting our portfolio assessments in Columbus, so the usual crowd of kids that hangs around here had to find another place to hang out.

One of Sam’s good friends, Aaron, went home before going down to another friend’s home. Aaron’s mom was there. She’s a single, hardworking mom with three kids at home. The kids tell me she works as a hotel maid. I’ve only seen her a few times, but I’ve talked to her on the phone quite a bit! Usually because she is calling me to look for her kids. The kids also tell me that she yells a lot and that may be. But I think she just has a lot on her plate right now and kids, being kids, they don’t always help her as much as they could or should.

On Friday when Aaron came home from school, his mother asked him to change out of his brand new school clothes before he went out again. I’m not sure why Aaron didn’t want to comply with that, but before long they were in a shouting match and Aaron’s mom was slapping him around a bit. The kids tell me she does this sometimes when she gets mad at him.

Now Aaron is a big boy. At 14 he’s around six feet tall, and probably close to 220 pounds or so. He stutters a little bit. The kids tell me he doesn’t stutter when he cusses, but I’ve never heard him cuss. He is always very polite around me and the few times I have had to correct him he has been very courteous about that too.

I guess she slapped him one time too many, because he pushed her and she fell backward, stumbled on the couch and hit the floor on her bottom. She was furious.

When we got home all of the neighbor kids rushed the car to tell us that Aaron had been arrested and taken off in a police car. I guess when they heard the name of our street, and the words “son”, “mother”, and “fight” in the same sentence they weren’t going to take any chances, especially after what happened to my neighbor Shayla. So Aaron was sent to juvenile hall, and according to his little sister, he was never to be heard from again.

“Never” came on Tuesday. I was homeschooling the kids in our classroom when Aaron walked into the house. He had a court hearing that morning with his mother in front of a judge and he had to plead guilty if he wanted to be released. This was a big interruption to our school day, but some things you just can’t learn as well from a book. Aaron talked about how bad the food was, and how bored he was the whole time. Except on Labor Day. They let the kids play basketball on Labor Day and he had a lot of fun. I guess his mother still wasn’t speaking to him so he spent most of the day with us. I did encourage him to apologize to his mother and try to get along better.

Yesterday I walked into the basement and there was Aaron playing video games with Sam. He looked great in his new school clothes and his hair was all braided. When I asked him if his mom was speaking to him, he smiled and said, “She braided my hair.”

I guess that means there’s hope.

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