Is that all they did? Maybe there are more facts. The kids would have fared better having sex somewhere warm. Then everybody would have been happy.
A neighbor gave my kid and me one of our happiest memories. They didn't object when he built, for him, and elaborate ski jump on their property. He was so proud of it, and I walked down the alley to see it and watch him perform. Another neighbor used to loan my kids their toboggan.
Thinking back, I should have asked the first neighbor if it was all right (he could have found me if he didn't like it) and made sure my son cleaned up the boards after he was done. I was a little negligent in the good neighbor department there, was really thoughtless of me, but I was younger and struggling to survive. If I see him out in his beautiful garden, I'll ask him if he remembers. Maybe somebody else owns the property now.
Another neighbor on one of the nicest streets in town, let the kids use their pool. When the flag was up, the kids could go swimming. I was a little leery about that because I didn't know how much supervision they were getting, but it was generous of them to think of the kids. The flag is long gone now. So are the kids. There are much fewer around here, and it has one of the best elementary schools in town.
Now everybody, including me, is so afraid of lawsuits, things are different. I even worry about it when I catch the neighbor kids in my trees. Sometimes I give permission, but watch them like a hawk and then tell them time to come down. Watching one girl go so high up and the gyrations to reach an apple was really something. I just had to ask her to come down, saying I didn't mind them taking the apples, but didn't want them to get hurt. I used to love to climb trees, but one mad parent and lawsuit my less friendly insurance company could try to weasle out of could finish me off. I doubt a release form, making the parents sign, blah blah would hold up in court anyway.
My memories of high school were of regularly using the grounds of the high school for activities when school was over. This included summers and weekends. We played every sport imaginable, soccer, football, la cross, or ran on the high school's out door track. Me and my friends also went to other local school yards to play as well. We would draw a square batter's box on the wall of one grade school and play fast pitch baseball using the wall as a back stop for our tennis balls. I can't remember ever being kicked off by the police. The only time the police came by is when we played softball in the street. We of course resumed play when the police drove away.
This of course, does not include the various indoor soccer matches played in the Gyms of local grade schools on Sunday mornings when they left the doors unlocked.
Things sure have changed.
I know what you mean. Back when I was growing up in the 50's and 60's I broke my leg at a friends place. A neighbor fell from the top of one our trees. We kids were getting minor injuries all the time but I don't think it ever occurred to any parent to sue somebody. I also remember one of our neighbors couldn't find work for awhile and my dad and other neighbors would give them what we could afford with never the thought of paying us back.
I think lawsuits and/or the threat of them killed off some of the real neighborliness today. A good meeting ground for the neighbors to meet each other was through their kids playing with other kids and then the parents meeting each other. I really don't know how parents react now when their kid gets hurt in somebody elses yard. I suppose it varies from neighborhood to neighborhood.
Like you were saying it's hard to know now just what to do.