Guest commentary: What's wrong is not kids climbing a tree

We have been going to that beach for about 10 years. My children were born here and are being raised here.

There is a certain tree there at Vedado Way (anyone who has gone there will know what I'm talking about) that is a perfect climbing tree for children. You can't help but not want to climb it when you see it. That also includes some adults!

There was an elderly man and woman sitting on the beach (nowhere near the tree). My daughter and her friend were climbing on the tree. My daughters' other friend was walking by the elderly couple when they told her to "Tell your friends to get out of the tree or we are going to call the police!" He never once came to me (the adult).

I told the girls it was OK to climb the tree as long as they don't pick the leaves or disturb anyone that might come sit under the tree.

As I am talking to them, the elderly man proceeds to hold up his phone and use the scare tactic on the girls!

I walked over to him and his wife (I presume) and asked them if they had a problem with the kids and he told me he had a problem with them in the tree, because he had seen a stick fall when they were in it!

I asked him if he had been a child and liked to climb a tree. We had a few words about how in his mind it seemed children have absolutely no place here in Naples.

The retired "snowbirds" do not want to see or hear children while they are down here in "paradise" -- neither at the beach, movies or restaurants.

I can't believe, with all the turmoil that this country is in and our soldiers being killed every day over in Iraq, that a couple of kids having fun on a Sunday at the beach in a tree is such a crime!

Is their life so empty and miserable that they have to threaten children?

There is no sign saying you cannot climb this tree; just don't pick the sea oats.

Oh yeah: a police officer showed up after this couple left -- we don't know if by coincidence.

There were two other children in the tree by the time we were leaving, and the policeman never said a word.