You’d better not cry when you are caught and punished for desecrating the Port Gamble Cemetery and vandalizing the beautiful historic lumber town.

We don’t want to hear your lame excuses:

“He made me do it.”

“I was bored, there’s nothing to do in North Kitsap.”

We just want to hear your deepest apologies and see you working to rebuild all you destroyed.

It won’t be easy we assure you. In one night, you tore down much more than signs and fence posts, you tore down a rising community spirit.

We are proud of what Port Gamble has accomplished in the past few years. Businesses have gone out on a limb starting there and just as things were looking up for the scenic community, you struck it maliciously.

Rebounding isn’t as simple as vandalism.

It takes faith, planning, brains.

When you’re caught — and you will be caught as anyone stupid enough to vandalize their own community is certainly not smart enough to evade the law — we hope they throw the book at you.

We also hope you’re intelligent enough to read it and understand that you did more than vandalize some inanimate objects. You tainted yourself.

We hope when the years pass and you mature (it could happen) and you decide to take the spouse and kids to see Port Gamble for a day, you’ll feel the full shame for what you did so many years ago. That you’ll look back on that night and hang your head.

“What was I thinking?” you may ask.

You weren’t. It doesn’t matter now. The damage is done.