Google “mailbox baseball,” and one finds that this is a phenomenon across the country, that it’s been depicted on “Family Guy,” “The Simpsons” and “Freaks and Geeks” and that some people have gone to great measures — think tire spikes — to keep the pranksters at bay. One Web site depicts mailboxes that look like small fortresses, mailboxes that dangle from an overhead pole and mailboxes so strong that one happy homeowner found a broken bat next to it one morning.

Here on Vashon, resourcefulness, too, is blossoming. A homeowner on one of the hard-hit roads has duct-taped aerosol cans to the top of his or her mailbox, presumably in the theory that the swinging bat will cause the cans to explode with paint and douse the prankster’s car with a kind of scarlet letter.

The fact is, this is a sorry state of affairs — at least three weekends of mailbox baseball, topped by an airfield stripped of its lights and thousands of dollars of vandalism at The Harbor School. And it’s a sorry commentary on life that we need to fortify our mailboxes to save ourselves the expense and hassle of replacing them. For some, it’s not simply expense and hassle; if they’re counting on a Social Security check to come that week, they could be in trouble without that mailbox.

It seems it’s time for the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council, the closest we have to a government on Vashon, to step forward and organize some neighborhood block watch efforts. Failing that, Islanders can do it on their own. There’s a remarkable pattern to these pranks. With a little effort, neighbors from Bank to Cove and from the highway to Thorsen could come together and begin a Saturday night watch. One call to 911, and these guys could get busted.

Let’s organize, take back our mailboxes and put an end to these expensive and painful pranks. After all, this is Vashon. We know the power of community on this Island. We also know how to take care of ourselves.