The Toy Train Affair

In second grade, I packed up my newly acquired windup toy train set, put it in one of those shopping bags with handles on it, and trudged thru the snow to proudly demonstrate it to my fellow classmates. My most admired show and tell item of that era was a fishing tackle box, that I packed with neat lures and stuff my dad had. But for this week's show and tell, the train set was the featured attraction.

I'm pretty sure it met it's demise when I over wound it one too many times. I cannot recall how I came to obtain said train set, as gifts of any kind were quite infrequent in my young life, as my parents were pretty poor at this point.
But, I digress. When school was over, I packed up the train set and started to walk home with Bobby, my best friend. That was my first mistake of the afternoon.  Let's just say that he got into trouble a lot and I was there to participate in a lot of it. This was one of those times.
We were no more than a couple of houses away from the school, when for whatever reason, Bobby started making snowballs and began to throw them at a house along our route home. I don't mean just one or two, but a lot of snowballs. I'm sure I joined in, hurling snowballs at this guy's house, including his picture window. 
Our usual snowball targets, especially in later years were the trucks and buses that passed by at a busy intersection near our houses. While we had a few close calls being chased by our victims there, today would be a different story.

All of a sudden this guy comes tearing out of the house, screaming and yelling at me and Bobby! We both took off, but I had the shopping bag full of  my train set to carry with me as we fled, terrified. Weighted down, I was not as fleet  as Bobby was that day and the guy caught me and brought me into his house.
Looking back, I realize that in today's world, no one would ever bring a 7 or 8 year old kid into their house, but these were different times. He harshly sat me down in a chair right next to the front door and he walked away for purposes I was unsure of at that point. I sat in that chair, and with the homeowner not watching me, contemplated bursting out of the door to freedom.  I considered my chances of being recaptured and before I could muster up the courage to flee, the homeowner returned to the front door area as simultaneously, a police officer pulled up to the house.

The guy had called the cops on me! I don't remember any of the two minute ride to my house. The officer rang our doorbell and my mom came out and I guess the officer gave my mom the details of what happened.

I'm sure I was sobbing by this point. The officer left and I told my mom the details of what had happened that winter afternoon, just down the street. Once she heard Bobby was involved, I think I was off the hook for the most part as like I said, he was in trouble constantly. She called Bobby's mom and told her what happened.I'm pretty sure I didn't get punished for my actions that day.
Unless, you take into consideration that I had to walk past that guy's house countless more times over the years, always a little fearful that he might come out once again, yelling and screaming at me.