To the editor:

My husband and I have spent the last three years putting all of our money, energy and heart into fixing up our small home in Lawrence. We both take great pride in the landscaping of our yard because we feel it makes a difference in the community we were both raised in. Last spring, my husband surprised me with two new saplings to plant in our yard. We were ecstatic when rewarded with a profusion of blooms on the peach tree this spring. We checked the tree every day to see if we were going to have fruit and were exhilarated with our first bumper crop of about 25 peaches.

You can imagine our disappointment when we checked our tree recently and all but five peaches had been taken. It may seem trivial to some, but I feel this action shows a great lack of respect toward us, toward other people’s property and toward the community in general.

This is not the first time something has been taken out of our yard. Actions like this take the fun out of having pride in how your personal property affects the community. I would like people to think about how their actions affect others. Sometimes seemingly harmless actions hurt others, or have consequences unknown to the perpetrator. If discouraged one too many times, people will give up, this can be detrimental to the community. To the person who did this, shame on you. If you would have knocked on our door, we would have shared.

Erica Wilcoxson,

Lawrence