Nowadays water balloons and squirt guns
are considered dangerous weapons.
Oddities which can get you tackled to the ground, cuffed,
and thrown into the back of a police cruiser.
It’s kind of funny.
I remember being younger, maybe 8 or so,
and having all-out wars with other kids
at Wildcat Landing near Brownsville, MN.
No one won, there were no casualties.
We would be throwing water balloons
and squirting each other with Super Soakers,
these dangerous weapons.
Their biggest offense was they wasted water.
To get it in the eye would sometimes start tears,
someone would inevitably run to Ma.
The midday sun was usually high,
the smell of sand and the chopping Mississippi
would be in the unbroken air.
Adults drank domestic beers and listened to classic rock.
We were just kids back then, with colorful toys.
Later on as a child, I remember my dad once shot his rifle
in the sky above a plainclothes officer
in our driveway at 1045 Bush Valley Rd.
The agent told us to get all of our guns/weapons.
I went inside and found my squirt guns
and brought them out.
The officer said with surprise, “Not those, son.”
He didn’t take my guns,
back then they were harmless.
He let me go, slap on the wrist.
Nowadays you can get arrested for that kind of stuff.
The shit we got away with,
man we were bad.
