Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Re-moving a hazard


Some friends of mine have decided to move from their old place in the country to a newer place, but still in the country. Last year we built them a beautiful 40 foot wall, so when I heard they were moving I jokingly asked if they were going to take it with them. He wrote back to say.

"As a matter of fact, the wall is coming with us! Had a running argument
with the roads crew @ the county in the late summer that culminated in a
written demand to remove the "hazard" or they would have it removed at our
expense. By that time we had an idea that we would be moving, so we
decided to take the wall down and store it. A couple of young lads and I
stripped it down one day in September. Sometime in the next two weeks I
will be moving the stones to the new property. We will rebuild it next
year. Very discouraging work to take down such a beautiful wall (kept
thinking of the opening lines in that Clash tune: "Breaking rocks in the hot
sun/I fought the law and the law won"), but we're giving it a much better
home."

It seems appropriate (and perhaps ironic) to post this moving wall story on the anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down Nov 9th 1989.