Chestertown seems like such a wholesome place, a quaint tourist town of historical significance with brick-lined byways and big heaps of charm on every street corner.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find this shocking profanity on the slide at the elementary school playground the other day.

And by “shocking,” I mean unimaginative. How in the world does the person who wrote it hope to scar young children with such tepid offense? Look at Kato. He wasn’t even mildly phased.

Did he read the offending word and cry? Did his moral fiber weaken? Did his soul grow just a little darker?

No, no, and no! The vandal was utterly ineffective. Kato smiled and laughed with joy and then went back for more.

Back in my day, we knew how to append the word “hole,” to show we really meant business. We knew how to add another word at the beginning to really up the ante. These Chestertown vandals are utterly ineffective.

Or so I thought. Until yesterday. Yesterday, we happened upon another instance of public defacement, one that gave me an entirely different perspective on our local disturbers of the peace.

We have long enjoyed feeding the birds at the public dock a few blocks from the barn. A few weeks ago, a sign went up indicating that it was no longer permissible to feed the ducks and geese, for a variety of reasons, among them that feeding ducks creates human/bird conflicts.

Obviously outraged at being told that he was no longer at liberty to feed ducks, the mild-mannered Chestertown vandal grew enraged and got truly medieval on the sign. I mean, ugliness of this sort has to be unprecedented in our picturesque historic district.

We were delighted that our own private Robin Hood had restored our right to feed the water fowl. But alas, we had no bread, and so had to be content with admiring them.

Please note the lack of human/bird conflict.