Professional Cock Fighters

Here's a shot of some of the neighborhood kids our kids on the front row during the last youth service at the pavilion.

OK. I slept pretty good Friday Night (unless you take into account having to get up every 2 hrs to use the bathroom... what’s up w/that?) only to be awakened early Saturday morning by MJ saying, “I really can’t understand what he’s trying to say but I think our kids killed his chickens or eggs or something!?”

She was referring to our neighbor who just came over to tell us that our kids had come onto his property while he was in Curitiba and committed some type of poultry crime. What? Seriously?

MJ could understand a little bit of what he said but not everything. So she got Me and Matthew up (Matthew- for his Portuguese, Me- so I could share in the embarrassment of what our kids had supposedly done). So, we got dressed and went to our next door neighbor’s house with proverbial hat in hand.

When we got there, he took us to the back of his property and pulled a huge rooster out of one of the numerous chicken coups that he had. This thing looked like it had gotten the crap beat out of it. Then he pulled another one out of another cage... and this one looked just as bad as the first one! He then explained (in Portuguese to Matthew) that while he was out of town a couple of my kids had come into his yard and let 2 of his roosters out so that they could fight each other. Say what?! My kids? You must be thinking about some other kids or something because my kids would never... oh, wait a minute. That does sound like something they could possibly do: (

So I sat there and listened to how the person who watches his property when he’s away heard roosters fighting and went to investigate. And, as he arrived just in time to separate the badly beaten and bloody roosters from each other, he witnessed 2 of my little precious boys running off in the distance.

The whole time I’m standing there in disbelief. Am I on an episode out of the twilight zone or something? I’m being told (in Portuguese) that my 7, 9 and 11 year old boys have begun a career in cock fighting and that they were able to escape the scene of the crime before they got busted. They’re just little kids. How would they even know that the roosters would fight? We don’t have roosters. We’re not from some backwoods town in West Virginia or something. We’re city folk.

So I apologized to my neighbor and hung my head in shame as we walked back to the house. What else can you do? Who would’ve ever thought that I would have to tell my kids, “no cockfighting kids! It’s not nice.” This is crazy.

They, of course, denied it. And to be honest with you I kinda believe them. Because as crazy as they are, to go onto someone else’s property is a little out of character for them. But who knows? It seems like there’s something new every day with them.

Anyway, this is one of those blogs with no spiritual meaning or message. I just wanted to write this down so that I could remember it later on down the road. With all the crazy stuff that happens to us, if I don’t write about it, it’ll be forgotten. Too much stuff to keep up with: )

Bewildered,

Jim