Isn't that what they say?

Good fences make good neighbors. Right? Well isn't that what they say? Good fences... Good fences ... just what the heck is that anyway?

I just bought a house in a little town surrounded and consumed by a metro hell-bent on exploding (or imploding, whichever the case may be) and even though I got rooked on the acreage department, it came complete with sturdy tall fences. So I am thinking, I bet I am gonna get good neighbors. Logical process?

Nate has turned out to be a gem of a neighbor, but he sure wouldn't need a fence to reinforce it. Joe is like a non-existant neighbor, works weird hours, parties at odd times, things like that. I think I like that fence.

Growing up as I did, with my grandparents an intergral part of my life, fences were not important. Fences were boundries and boundries meant restrictions and restrictions were a burr under my saddle. Fences were meant to keep something in, not keep something out. Now my life has changed so dramatically, from tiny-town farmers daughter to bored/secluded suburbanite, fences have become entirely normal. Don't forget these fences are built for the specific reason of keeping the rest of the world out. Is this really a good idea?

I miss my days of wandering aimlessly through the tall grass on horseback, wondering if gramma was going to fix fried chicken or baked steak for supper. I miss my days of no fences between me and whatever I wanted to go see, go do, go experience with very little or absolutely no restrictions at all. This all sounds like a whimsical farce, but it is truly how I grew up in this strange changing world. Don't think I didn't have responsiblities. Don't for a minute imagine I was raised by wolves or gypsy troops. When we worked, which was sun-up to sun-down every day during the spring into early summer and all fall into winter, we worked hard. But when we played, we were free from fencing.

There was something magical about listening to my grandfather tell stories about being a cowboy in west Texas in the early 1900's. There was a mystic quality to both of my grandmothers describing there lives as they grew into womanhood during the invention of cars and the devaluation of horseflesh. There is a distant but constant tug on my soul from the ancestors who trekked to this country from a place where fences had become commonplace and accepted. Ireland took the bit in her mouth with more than one fight, and the fight rages on. But don't good fences make good neighbors?

Isn't that whay they say?