Fences, cops, a funeral and a wedding..

Susan, my precious and delicate sister’s secretary, has tasked me to submit posts to this effort a bit more often. As she is an understandably under-employed English major, with an inexplicable sense of humor (rare among the species)so I feel obligated to comply. As I went about my weekend of hard labor, I made sure to take stock and notice, to try to squeeze some interesting stuff out of whatever popped up. I was barely successful.

A truly beautiful weekend. Warm, and as of Sunday afternoon, almost too warm for the stuff Angel wanted to do…
Imagine if you will, five, fifty-foot rolls of welded wire fence, five feet tall, twenty or so heavy t-posts, and about five thousand square feet of uneven, rocky, rutted, un-cleared land, covered in tall oaks, small oaks, sickly, light starved cedars, various weeds and saplings, and several accumulated years of dry leaves, and about three tons of softball size rocks. This is to be the new alternate dog-pasture.
When we first moved in to the house, we had a professional firm install a chain link and wood picket fence around the back yard. This is the main run for the dogs. However there’s a lot of vicious traffic with the running, rolling, occasional digging, and the frequent charge-and-wrestle matches. This is very hard on any grade of grass. Bailey herself has worn a permanent perimeter path already. So we decided to establish a larger, less delicate area adjacent to the existing fence line for roughhousing.
Before the chain link guy did his stuff last year, Angel and I spent a couple of weekends clearing off enough ground for that small effort. What we needed to do this past weekend was expand it, about twenty five feet out, and running a two hundred foot length.
Angel had already pounded in most of the steel posts in order to measure, and as a guide for the clearing. A couple or three posts a day, then she started clearing out a little bit at a time. This weekend, with both of us available, we went full steam ahead with the goal of finishing it up.
The ground is very rough, strewn with large rocks, exposed roots, and hidden construction residue of various heavy materials; steel, concrete, etc. The Riding mower would never make it. Too many mature trees for a brush hog to corner, so all that left was a manual effort with an axe, clippers, rakes, and the occasional employment of the weed eater.
The saplings, and there were thousands, took a lot of time, dulling the clippers over the course. The raking though is what really took the toll. In some areas the leaf cover was over a foot thick, several years old, decomposing at the bottom, rotting and moldy about halfway down (currently suffering savage sinus issues). We had to break through all the way as best we could, since leaf cover is prime, luxury accommodation for ticks, chiggers, and about two hundred species of alien insect life I had not previously encountered……
It took the two days, both of us, and also proved out something I had suspected. Angel is in much better physical shape than I am… I live in a nice, cool, cubicle most of the time. She works the dogs outside for several hours a day, every day. I buckled in the heat… As I napped on Sunday, I could still hear the pounding of smaller, supporting T-posts in the back.
We did indeed finish, though Angel is sure to be out again today primping, checking and tightening the fence.
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Saturday we worked hard, went out to the buffet for dinner, and stayed up late. At five-thirty Sunday morning a very rare thing occurred, someone knocked on our door. As it was very, very early on Sunday morning, I ignored it. But that bold gesture did nothing to thwart the rude attack. I tried to awaken Angel, but no-go. So I got up and stumbled forward… the sun was up a little, enough to see that there was a Sheriff’s cruiser in the driveway. There is a very long list of things that can quickly and completely sour up a beautiful spring Sunday morning.. having a sheriff’s deputy wailing away at your door at five thirty a.m. is definitely high on the list.
“Is this (insert street address) ?” she asked as I stared down at her feet trying to make out the brown plastic box. I had of course forgotten my glasses, and for some reason the box looked like a small animal carrier, which, in our household is not a rare thing, but it was too small for any of our massive dogs, and I didn’t think the deputy would be BRINGING us a small animal, especially at FIVE_$$%#@!!- THIRTY on a Sunday morning… and what is she saying? I hear her talking but I can’t stop trying to figure out what’s in the plastic box….”Yeah that’s right” I finally replied, though not really sure, as I’m now staring at her; checking to see if she really was a deputy, or maybe animal control, did one of our dogs tunnel out of the basement and kill someone? No not likely, wouldn’t explain the box, what is that? It looks familiar…..
“Sir, we had a bunch of kids knocking over mailboxes in the area, is this one yours?”
That explained it… as if coming out of a coma, things started making sense. It was my mailbox. Just the head, and it appeared to be in good shape, other than for being about five hundred feet away from the end of the driveway, where I had installed it.
“Uh, yeah, that’s mine….” Things cleared up as if pulled out of a deep fog… “…We caught them in the act, sir, would you like to fill out a claim report to prosecute? “

Don’t judge me yet…. There’s another story or two you need to know before you yell at me for being a weepy, timid sheep. I declined. Without explanation, I thanked her for her trouble and sent her on her way.
The mailbox wasn’t damaged. It was not just dumb luck though that it escaped harm. It was, in fact, by design. We’ve lived in the country before. We’ve had several mailboxes fall victim to local kids trying to wreak a little havoc on a dull, warm Saturday night. When we bought this place, one of the first items we installed was a sturdy, ‘break-away’ mailbox. If hit by a bat, hammer, or club, the head of the mailbox snaps out of its slots and tumbles away. Time to repair: about thirty seconds. Cost to repair? Zero dollars.
Sure the vandals deserve to be at least admonished, but remember, they’d been caught in the act. They had already smashed several, non-repairable mailboxes along the road… So it is very likely that others may pursue charges. The families of these misguided punks are now aware of their deed, and so they’re already dealing with that. Then there’s another thing….. for lack of a better word, I’ll call it Karma.
Without going in to unnecessary (embarrassing) detail, I’ll admit to having pushed the legal envelope when I was a teenager. I was caught, and the man that caught me contacted my parents, they came down on me hard. The shame, the humiliation, completely stifled any notions of a career, or even casual dalliances in crime. And because that man called my parents, instead of the police, I was able to quickly fix my life and go on without an ugly smudge in my record. One that could have kept me from certain positions I have held. So Sunday morning, at five-*%$#!! –thirty a.m. I cut some kids a little slack. What the other neighbors did, or will do? That’s up to them and their own philosophical baggage.
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Angel talked to her mom again last week. Barbara is quite the peach. I’ve always liked her and Virgil, really good people. Angel’s dad is retired from building fine, upscale swimming pools, Barbara got to retire too since she kept the books for that business. They golf now even more than they once did.
Barbara has a wonderful, intelligent sense of humor; I know that simply because she says I make her laugh.
Angel was telling her about the ‘few words’ I had said for dad’s birthday party. Barbara asked if I’d be willing to write something for her.. like her obituary. Better than leaving the task for a stranger, I suppose.
Why, yes I take it as a serious request! Think about it… Rather than some marginal newspaper hack or dark, morbid, funeral director throwing cold, heartless factoids into a barely remembered tedious and formulaic recitation of a stranger’s life, why not get someone you really know, trust (?) and someone you can work with ahead of time?
I of course told Angel that I’d love to..
Now is a very good time to do this, Angel’s mom is in good health, and really not so very old, and still seems to have her mind about her (though with that side of the family it is not always so easy to tell).
I’ve started wondering if there might not be an ongoing gig here… I should start to think about how much to charge… by the word, or by the lie? Extra charge for NOT mentioning something?
I do birth announcements too…..

On a related note, sort of.. I am hustling, with tentative success, my garrulous female cube-neighbor for a spot as a male bridesmaid in her wedding, currently scheduled for August ’08…