You won’t believe it, but once again I have been a victim of gang violence in Blue Earth.

OK, I know, I am not supposed to call it gang violence. It is not politically correct, apparently. I guess I am just a slow learner.

This time I will call them juvenile delinquents. But I suspect it was a gang of juvenile delinquents.

And this time they threw rocks at my house and at the many flowers and shrubs planted in my yard.

This time I don’t think I can blame the deer. No matter how hard they would try, I am pretty sure they can’t throw rocks. I mean, after all, they don’t have opposing thumbs on their hooves and would just be unable to pick them up, much less throw them with any velocity. So the deer are off the hook. This time anyway.

I am thinking it was human juvenile delinquents this time. And since they threw so many rocks there must have been a gang, oops, I mean a large group, of them.

Perhaps it was the same despicable group that took target practice at one of the new Sprouts in town, by damaging it with landscape rocks at Steinberg Park.

But at my home it was all white rocks. They pelted my house and dented the siding and threw them at the plants and shredded the leaves and broke off the stems.

My yard was littered with the white rocks that were left. Amazingly, though, by the time the Blue Earth police responded to my call, the white rocks had all but disappeared.

I guess somehow the vandals had sneaked back into my yard when I was not looking and took all the rocks away.

OK, by now I am sure you all realize that the white rocks are the hail stones that hit Blue Earth Wednesday evening, and that they melted away.

Now, before you grab pen and paper, or type on your electronic device, and send me a letter to the editor, this time I readily admit that getting hit by a storm is a serious thing and I really should not be making light of it.

People suffered damage to their homes and cars and farmers suffered damage to their crops. There will be thousands of dollars in damages assessed when it is all said and done.

It has been a tough summer, weather-wise. Too hot, too cold. Too much rain and now too many storms.

The only consolation, and it is sad consolation at best, is that the rest of the country seems to have it worse than we do. Way too hot out west and to the south, and way too much rain on the East Coast. Not to mention all those wild fires going on in California and elsewhere.

And yes, there is real gang violence going on across our country, as well as other senseless crimes of violence in big cities and smaller ones, too.

All in all, we have it pretty nice here in our small towns in southern Minnesota. Yes there are storms and yes, there is crime. But, all in all, it is a great place to live, work and play. Maybe that is why we are all here, and not living somewhere else.

Oh, and one more thing. I promise no more columns about gangs, of any type, ever again.