One night about two in the morning, long after Ken and I were asleep, I was awakened by a noise at our bedroom window.  At first I thought it was the wind pushing the forsythia bush limbs against the screen.  But It scared me, so I woke Ken up.  He told me it was nothing--go back to sleep.  But I heard it again, so he gave up on me letting him get back to sleep and got up to check.  When Ken finally came back to bed, I asked what it was.  "It was nothing.  Go back to sleep. I'll tell you in the morning," he said.

Scott had spent the night with his best "buds" at a friend's house--at a sleep-over--six or seven blocks from our house.  They were all nine or ten years old.  It was the year that the song "The Streak" was out, and of course, being nine years old, that was what they decided to do at two in the morning.  Go streaking through the neighborhood.  Thinking that everyone in the neighborhood would be asleep by then.  But Sue Wayne Pierson, who was hosting the sleep-over party, got up to check on them just as they went flying through her back yard.  Buck naked.  Busted.

Ken shared the story with me the next morning.  All the boys had been in real trouble with Sue.  She gave them a lecture and sent them back to bed--dressed in pajamas of course.  But Scott had such a guilty conscience, that he came home in the middle of the night to "Confess" and get his dad to forgive him before Sue told us what the boys had done.  He was scratching on our bedroom window, trying to wake his dad up, in the middle of the night.  "I confessed that I was sorry to God, but it didn't do any good,  I knew I would have to confess to you before God would forgive me.  I'm sorry and I won't do that again." (Ken and Scott were new to the parent/son game.  Ken had been gone off and on for almost all of Scott's early years, and Scott didn't want to disappoint him.  I did most of the parenting, and after two girls, Scott was a new experience.)

He was fairly obedient--with things I told him not to do.  Problem was, I could never think up all the things there were to tell him not to do.  Like going streaking.  He was always in trouble, doing things I hadn't told him not to do.  I told him not to point his BB gun at anyone, or windows, or houses.  He blew out the street lights on our block.  I hadn't told him not to do that.  I took him down to the mayor's office, had him stand there and tell them what he had done.  It took him forever to pay for the lights with his allowance.   When God was looking for a mother to place Scott with on earth, I guess he chose me because he knew I wouldn't kill him.  I admit that I sure did think about it.