Short story: Burnt once, twice shy. Old Jim handles misbehaviour by others, differently this time.

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Old Jim Holtman, was 77 years old now. One day, he was gardening in his backyard, with his wife, Mildred, and he had left his roller-type garage door open. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked across, through the open garage door, and he saw two young children, around 5 or 6 years old, (a boy, and a girl) come up his concrete path, and one, the boy, grabbed a pot plant there, that was sitting next to his garage door, just off to one side, and then he walked out with it, and the other child was using her hands to try to pull out a plant in the garden, to steal it too. There was a long garden bed, with plants in it, situated along the side of the driveway near the garage, and it was fairly long, as it went the whole length of the driveway. Jim run out through the open garage door, as quickly as his advanced age would allow him to do so. He managed to grab both kids, by their shoulders, as they were walking away, side by side. "Eh, what do you think that you are doing, stealing my plants like that?" he said to them, rather roughly. Then, he took off his rubber thong, and he said to them that his own father used to hit him with something like this if, he ever tried to steal stuff. "You shouldn't be doing that," he said, telling them off in no uncertain fashion. Jim then marched them both around to his wife, still in their backyard, busy with her own vegetable plot there, to show her what they had done, telling them that he will get his wife to decide what to do with you. His wife smiled. "Kids will be kids," she said to Jim. "Let them go now." "Ok, kids, said Jim, still in his gruffest of voices. "I hope that you have learnt a valuable lesson here, not to steal from other people." But, then when they had just let them go, as they went out, Jim saw a third kid, a girl of around only 3 years old this time, also digging with her hands in his garden bed, trying to pull out a plant too. She was trying to copy her siblings, Jim guessed to himself. Jim ran at her, but she run off too, so he let them all go then too. "When we do something bad, we often lead others astray too," Jim mused to himself, as he went back to continue to help his wife, in their vegetable patch. Jim had remembered an earlier event, years before, in his life, where things had panned out even worse than this for him, then. He had remembered this harrowing event now too, and this is why he handled this situation differently this time. He had caught two teenagers in his backyard, and his wife had not been home that time. They were spray-painting graffiti, onto the back wall of his house. He had been angry, as he was younger then, and he had grabbed them by the ears, as his father had often done to him, when he was a lad too. Then, he had told them that as their punishment, he was going to put them in prison for a while. He locked them both in his garden shed for a few hours, and then he let them out, telling them that he hoped that they had learnt a lesson from this, and will not destroy property again. The problem was though, that these ten-year-old kids had told their father about Jim's antics. The father told the Police. Two Police cars had arrived at Jim's house then that same afternoon, and they arrested him, for kidnapping kids, and holding them captive like that. Jim was lucky not to end up in jail. He had had to pay a fine, and he had been placed on a community do-gooder program for 12 months too, to do volunteer work for the community, by going around and helping to remove graffiti from fences, bus shelters, and other buildings, in the town in which he lived. At least, Jim was more mellow now, at his older age, and this time, he had left it to his wife to decide what to do with these misdemeaning kids, this time. Takeaway line: Life eventually teaches us that anger is always risky. We should love, and help others, not try to punish them. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com Old Jim was still a tough old man, but his loving wife had changed his roughness, over the years. He was now more mellow. Leopards do not change their spots, but the spots do fade over time. Time is the great healer.