Living with Beaver: Part 7: What I Learned in School - By June, --A PSST Mom Posted by:Sally--Saturday, September 18, 2010

I suppose Beaver and Gilbert just didn’t think that was enough adventure for one day, so back to his dad's house they went again.

This time, they took some weed from Dick’s hiding spot, and got on skateboards [remember I told you that everything June bought ended up at Dick’s house?] and went off to get high. Adjacent to the road Dick lives on is another road that leads to the Elementary School. Those two scamps went down this road and stopped at a home that was unoccupied. From the story June was told, this is where they smoked the marijuana. Gilbert supposedly ‘rested’ his feet on the front door and ‘stretched his legs’ to see if the door might open. It thankfully did not. Some alert neighbors saw the boys on the vacant home’s porch and called the police. Beaver and Gilbert saw the police coming, so Gilbert ditched Beaver’s skateboard in the weeds [why? —I have no idea] and went into the woods. Beaver and Gilbert were heading back towards Dick’s house, but along the way they came across another vacant home. This home wasn’t as lucky as the first one. Beaver and Gilbert used their BB guns to shoot out a sliding glass door. Boy, I bet that made some noise! The boys entered the vacant home, and began to shoot out all the windows. According to their story told to the State Police, they both did this. Beaver, on the other hand, chose to – all by himself - shoot the thermostat off the wall. Why? -- Because “he wanted to see what mercury was really like”. Where’s a science teacher when you need one? There was mention that some sort of tampering with the gas or water meter occurred, but that was not verified as done by either Beaver or Gilbert.

Those poor boys were tired! They wanted to go home! Beaver and Gilbert headed back to Dick’s house. This time they didn’t have so far to walk, because the police were driving down the road, saw who they were, and were kind enough to give them a ride home to Dick’s house, along with the skateboard that was previously ditched in the weeds. The police officer talked to Dick, who was visibly intoxicated [according to the police report], and told him that he must keep Beaver and Gilbert at the home and they were not to leave.

Dick supposedly yelled at the boys about the incident. Beaver was afraid and Gilbert didn’t want to stay there anymore.

Here is where a turn in the right direction would’ve made all the difference in the world.

The next morning was Saturday, Beaver and Gilbert left Dick’s house because he was still yelling. They took off across the street and back to the elementary school. Hey, what a great place to smoke some more weed!

Beaver said that when they got to the school, Gilbert took a large rock and threw it through a ground level window of the school. This rock was so big that it broke some of the fixtures –sink or lavatory [June’s memory is fuzzy] – in the room. Beaver and Gilbert entered the school, and wandered around getting ‘educated’. They started by seeing if a sharp knife would cut through rafts. Wow-experiment a success! You sure do learn a lot at school! No reason to remain any longer here.

Beaver and Gilbert went back outside and decided to make a campfire on the playground. June is so proud of the boys! They remembered everything she taught them in scouts about making a campfire! What good scouts they both are! EXCEPT the part about making a fire where it won’t cause any damage. The campfire was started on a playground that has a rubber matting, as a base so falling did not hurt so much. Having a campfire burning on it is a whole other story. Wow, another learning experience! School really is great! Gilbert wondered what would happen if they made the fire bigger by throwing some of the trash from the dumpster on it and Beaver wondered too. This experiment proved to be a success too. If you add combustible materials to a fire, it turns into a true bonfire! And, once that really hot fire gets going on rubber, there’s no stopping it! Beaver realized that they had a true problem, and pleaded with Gilbert to help him try to stamp it out. Gilbert said “no way” and ran, very quickly

Side note: It took June 2 ½ years to realize that Beaver was telling the truth about trying to stamp it out. The epiphany actually occurred at a PSST meeting, when the light bulb came on and she remembered Beaver picking at the scabs on his legs that occurred when the hot rubber had splashed up when he was trying to stamp out the fire. It’s funny how when the story is so outrageous you want so desperately to believe that your child couldn’t possibly be involved in such a horrific thing, that you just accept the whole ball of wax as being a lie.
This little thing made the Grinch’s heart a little warmer.