My father has turned Kevin into a felon.

It all started innocently enough. My dad loves the Portland Japanese Garden and wants to create something similar in his own back yard. The Portland Garden is filled with Japanese maples, koi ponds, and rocks. It’s the rocks that caused all the trouble.

The rocks used in Japanese gardens are not your garden variety river stones that you can pick up at your local Home Depot. Oh no, these rocks have character. They are Columbia River Blue Rocks. Cragy, pointy, and dark. An integral part the any well planned Japanese Garden, my dear father decided to pick some up on this visit to Portland.

Now, a normal father would proceed to the local decorative rock quarry and pick out some nice Columbia River Blue rocks. Notice the use of the adjective “normal” before the word father. This is called irony.

My crazy father decides he doesn’t want any stinking tame rocks. Oh no, my father wants his rocks freshly plucked from the Columbia River. My mother and I, being very intelligent women, decided to head to the movies once we realized what was looming on the horizon. (We saw Lilo & Stitch. Very cute movie.) Elmo and Kevin, however, declined to join us. Instead, they jumped into the bubba truck and headed into the Columbia River National Park.

I know you all are intelligent readers who probably see the problem right now. But, for those of you who haven’t had your morning coffee yet, let me help you out. You see, it’s against the law to take things from National Parks. And yes, this includes rocks.

So picture this, my father wading though the water, grabbing rocks from the river bed and throwing them up the ravine to my husband who hauls them, still dripping with Columbia River water, over the side of the truck. They continue up and down the river pillaging wild rocks from their natural resting places until…..

Pop quiz – to enforce the federal rules that protect National Forests, the Federal Government employs who? If you said a park ranger, you’d be right. After loading up 200lbs of virgin river rock, my husband notices a white bronco that’s pulling off of the road and slowing heading toward him. Sure enough, it’s a forest ranger and she isn’t amused. She catches Elmo, ankle deep in water, holding two beautiful rocks, one in each hand.

“Sir, this is a National Forest and you can’t remove any of the wildlife here. That includes the rocks. You’re going to have to put those back,” she said nodding at the rocks he held.

“No problem,” my dad said dropping the rocks at his feet and inching toward his truck. “We’ll just be heading out.” Luckily, the ranger didn’t bother to look in the bed of the pickup and she drove off without seeing the other 200lbs of pilfered rock. As soon as her truck rounded the corner, however, Elmo ran back, grabbed the two rocks he had just dropped, threw them into the back of the truck and then peeled out.

So there are currently 30 rocks still covered with river moss sitting in my driveway. When questioned why he had to take the rocks directly from the river instead of purchasing them like a normal person, my father responded, “when I sit on my porch and look at my garden, I want to know that some river spend hundreds of years forming these rocks before I ripped them from the riverbed.”

My father, ladies and gentleman, the rock stealer. The saddest part is, Kevin had a blast. I think he’s been seduced to the dark side. Sigh.