I've written about this incident before,  but since I've been writing about Jon this last week, I'll tell it again.  There was a group of 12 boys that Jon grew up with.  They were really close, good kids, and did everything together.  (Most of the time, good.)  They spent a lot of their time at our house.  I think because I was a little bit "loose."  I didn't get hung up on things that seemed to upset other mothers.

One day I looked out into the back yard and they were all 12 standing around with shovels in their hands.  I did not want to know what they were getting ready to do.  Turns out, they were digging a hole.  Every day, they would congregate in my back yard and dig.  The neighbors seemed upset that I didn't stop them.  But to me, it was great.  I knew where they were; I knew what they were doing, and it kept them within my sight and out of trouble.

The hole got deeper and deeper, four feet or more.  The neighbors got more and more agitated that I wasn't upset because these 12 kids were tearing up my yard.  This went on for weeks.  I finally asked one of the boys what they were doing.  "Building a dugout," he told me.  Sounded good to me.

Of course, there came a day that the "Dugout" lost it's allure.  And they all moved on to some other project.  I called a man to fill the hole back up.  He did.  I laid some sod, and my yard was all was back to it's original condition.   Nobody got hurt.  No harm was done.  Cheaper than Legos. And I knew where they all were, and what they were doing for weeks.  Seemed like a perfect deal to me.

People worry about the strangest things.  A hole in the ground!  Kinda like when Jon was three and kept flipping a light switch off and on, and one of my friends asked why I didn't stop him.  "Because, he will tire of it soon, and if I say no, I will have to get up and enforce it.  I don't want to enforce it.  I only say no over really important things--but when I say no, I enforce it absolutely."  And of course, in a few days, the "light switch" flipping was over.  Jon had figured it out.

Ken used to say: "Say "Yes" when you can.  Save your "No's" for important things."  Don't ever say "No" if you aren't going to stand behind it every single time."  If you don't stand behind every "No" you say, then "No" becomes "Maybe."  That's what is wrong with our legal system today.  We say "No. It's against the law," but we don't mean it.  You can do the same wrong thing over and over again and never suffer the consequence for what you did.  Why make a law if you don't enforce it?!!