grumpy old man

When we first moved into our house, about five years ago, I was warned about my next door neighboor to the right of our house. There was no welcome wagon or anything when we moved in what I learned was from the few people I met at the bus stop that also had kids. I was told the the old man next to us wasn't very nice. I didn't think much of it as he had waved hello a few times and seemed to talk and get along well with my dad when we put up our fence shortly after we moved in. I ran into him once outside of the block and didn't even realize it was him when he said hello. I felt bad but what can you do, we were still pretty new to the neighborhood.
We bought the house from and older woman who was moving to Florida because that was where her only daughter now lived. Her husband had died years before. Every once in awhile I try to find out how, just incase it was in my house. Haven't been able to find anything though. Every once in awhile we hear this loud bang always from the same spot above what was the living room before we added on and Rob will joke that it's Mr. Frank haunting us because we can never find any reason for the noise. Mrs. Frank did tell us some about our new neighbors to be before we bought the house. The old man next door had lost his wife after she had lost her husband. His son still lived, and lives with him, though I can't figure out how old he is. I have never had any contact with him but he looks about the same age as my husband and I. His daughter lives on the other side of him. I'm not sure if there's a husband around or not but there is a granddaughter. Never met the mom but the granddaughter had been friends with the girls that lived on the other side of us so she may have even been over once or twice. I think she is a year or two older than my boys.
The women at the bus stop told me how he called the police and or the town about the basketball hoop outside her yard and how it wasn't allowed in the street and he didn't like them playing in front of his house. I believe there was another incident or two but that was the one that stuck in my mind. I really didn't think badly about him from what i was told, figured it was just heresay.
I love being outside in my yard so my kids are outside a lot with me. They have tons of toys to play with including many balls and other items that may wind up over a neighbors fence. At first it wasn't too bad they'd lose a few balls, go over and knock and he'd get them for them. Or he'd even throw them back. After I guess too much of this he told my boys,"tell your dad i'm not your left fielder" and that he wasn't going to be retrieving any more balls for us. My husband put about 2 foot chicken wire fence above our 6 foot fence along the side of our yard the connected to his to catch the balls. Of course some still go over but now we never see them again. I hear him open his door shortly after and let his dog out and then the dog chews up whatever ball went over. I figure thats his right its his yard and the kids really need to watch what goes over from now on. If i was alone all day enjoying peace and quiet when and old woman lived next door and by her own admission never went outside, then she goes and sells her house to us with now four young noisy kids I may not be too happy about it either. So he's doing his best maybe. Having his fun letting his dog chew our stuff. If i were him I might do the same. Its obvious he watches everything as he reacts very quickly. Guess he has nothing better to do.
My son Robert loves remote control flying toys. He has had quite a few over the years. He knows to be very careful with the grumpy old man next door and hardly ever flies anything near the property line. One day we were out in the front him, me and little jake. Jake distracted him and it went over nasty mans fence. But it barely went over. Now he had a short fence seperating his front and back yards and he has a chain link seperating our front yard from his. We could see the flying wasp toy just a few feet into the backyard. He tried reaching it and couldn't quite make it. Now this was no cheap toy as most good remote control things are. I told him quickly jump in grab it and jump out. He did. Now Robert is also afraid of dogs so there's no way he'd have gone over if the dog was out. Within ten seconds of him jumping back out and into our yard nasty man was at his side door yelling at me. Yelling about how he has a dog and he's not responsible for anything that might happen if my son comes over his fence into his yard and the dog were to get him. And as he's yelling he's pointing his old crotchedy figure at me. I was pissed. But what are you going to do. I said he was in and out no one got hurt and walked away.
A few days later I noticed nasty man had some fencing delivered. I immediately thought you got to be kidding. Thinking he was going to put up new higher fence where Robert was able to jump over. Well it didn't go up right away but sure enough a few weeks later he's got brand new 6 ft stockade fence up. I thought it was too funny. Whats better is he must have it standing on something because his 6ft fence is a good foot higher than my six foot fence that runs along side it. I just have to laugh every time I look at it.
I have thought about maybe baking him a cake or some cookies to bring over to be the bigger person and apologize for all the balls and everything else that may have come in his yard. There was a period of time when just for fun Jake would throw anything he got his hands on over the fence if he could get it that high. Most of that stuff I believe came back. I still toy with the notion of doing it. Maybe when I bake all my christmas cookies I'll send over a bunch. Maybe. But for now I just let it be and hope none of my kids lets anything special get over that fence because they never will see it again.