Our mailbox was "punked" last night. Bashing mailboxes is a long-standing activity in our town. I've heard baseball bats out of car windows as the method of choice. But the forensic examination I conducted this morning doesn't point to hit-and-run violence. The wrought-iron bracket bolted into the granite post was mildly bent, perhaps a construction too sturdy for anyone less than Barry Bonds to destroy quickly with a mere baseball bat. And the mailbox itself did not look batted either, just enough off kilter that the box won't close now.  This could have happened falling to the ground. No, the marauders at work last night appeared to have used, not a bat, but a wrench and screwdriver. These vandals removed, and stole, the two bolts that held the mailbox on the bracket. The smaller bolts that remain along the side, holding the mailbox on the wood mounting board, are rusty. I can not imagine anyone could have removed the two main bolts without a tool or two.

MIT students are famous here in Boston for pulling off amazingly smart pranks, like putting a campus police cruiser on the roof of the Great Dome under cover of night. Everyone goes to sleep; no car. Next morning; everyone wakes up to car on top of dome. Supposedly, no one heard a thing.

But this prank in our yard last night was not so smart—vandalizing private property, and since there was mail in the mailbox, my husband suggested the perpetrators be up for a federal offense.  And, I heard them. For once, our dog was containing herself, emitting only occasional low growls from the living room beneath me as I lay in bed thinking that the voices and car engine noises outside were next door where a twenty-something daughter comes home late at night. After several minutes, I considered turning on the front lights, which would have set our dog barking full out, to hint that the youngsters might finish up hanging out outside, but I told myself that would be rude. My mistake. What the young people were up to was beyond rude. It was stupid, and wrong.

Last night was senior prom. Is this related? Perhaps. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a town to solve these problems.  Or maybe a country.  I can only think that the parents of the young people out there didn't spend enough time making sure their children realized there were certain lines one doesn't cross over. These kids crossed one last night. But I have also thought for years that we Americans do a poor job of providing our teenagers with positive and attractive venues for recreation. We glamorize alcohol, cars, and sex, while we fail to provide teen centers, glamorize healthy recreational activities, or provide late night meetings spots other than fast food restaurants to further confound a youth population already mired in eating disorders like anorexia and obesity. The single crime belonged to them last night, a small group of kids looking for excitement, but the bigger crime, that this was the best activity they could come up with, belongs to all of us.