Fences

Bob Wright was the city manager when we moved to town. He was the person everyone called when they wanted to find out something. Shortly after we moved in, we began to meet our new neighbors. We had kids and were the youngest family in the block. The rest were older people—40s, 50s, and 60s.

Not long after we moved here I was sitting on my toilet in the utility room with the door wide open. And I hear the sliding screen door open but thought it was one of the kids— instead, in walks my new neighbor, Ruby Davis. She saw me on the toilet and said, “Hi neighbor.”

Lordy, I was embarrassed. I sat there and said, “Morning, Ruby; what’s up?” About that time, my wife, Pat, came from somewhere and laughed so hard she almost had an accident. Seeing what a predicament I was in, she moved Ruby away from the utility room door so I could get out of my bathroom.

I went to Sears and bought a roll of old-fashioned garden wire fence material—brought it home and began digging holes for the posts. Ruby watched the route to our house being cut off and came over to inquire about what kind of fence I was going to put up. She went on and on about this crappy fence I was putting in the yard instead of chain link.


I had to tell her that the neighbor’s young boy, still in diapers, had fallen into a hole that I had filled with water. The hole was for a bush I was planting and I had filled it with water so the ground would be saturated when I planted it. Patty had called me for lunch and I left the hole unattended when I went in the house for lunch.

We both heard this “Sploosh” sound and jumped up and looked and saw our neighbor boy, in a diaper, clinging to the side of the hole with muddy water running out of his diaper. Pat got him out of the hole and took him over to his mother.

I told Ruby about kids falling into holes filled with water and said I had to put up a fence. She didn’t like my fence and said she was going to call somebody about it. Before she had a chance to call, I called Bob Wright, then the city manager, and explained my problem with my neighbor.

He told me that I could put up any kind of fence, with any kind of wire, or boards (painted or unpainted), as long as it was in my backyard and on my side of the property line. And that’s what I did. The fence ended up being pretty nice and was replaced, when I had more money, with chain link and then with a wood fence that is still up. Times have changed. The last board fence I had put up was expensive. Ruby would have been pleased.