Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

My father has lost his mind. I went up to San Francisco on Sunday morning to help my father repair his backyard fence. The slats were falling loose from the posts, and the entire fence sagged like a hammock underneath an obese elephant. The old planks of wood fallen from the fence served as braces to keep the entire structure from toppling over; there was something cannibalistic about this—like performing chest compressions on a dying man with his own severed hand.

But none of this stopped my father from wanting to repair the fence.

I just assumed it was 50% frugality and 50% male stubbornness. But after digging holes around the support posts for an hour, he wiped his brow and said, "Man, I would love to just buy a new fence."

"Then why are we fixing this lost cause?" I asked as I knocked termites out of the structural posts with my shovel blade.

"Because! Those neighbors over there won't split the cost of the fence with me. It's principle: I'm not going to spend upwards of $1000 just so they can get a new fence for free."

He had a point...in a crazy sort of way. I agree it would be unfair to give shortsighted neighbors a free fence, but I also wonder why we would spend an entire day fixing a fence that will most likely collapse like a dying star during the next storm.

It was hard work. My back hurt from the digging, and my legs cramped from all the crouching. But even though our bodies ached, we laughed through pain remembering when a bird attacked my father outside a movie theater. Our hands had invisible splinters, but we could only smile when I was too afraid to jump over the fence once we had nailed in the final repairs.

He paid me for my work in Mexican food. My juicy pork was made only more delicious by crunch of dirt from beneath my fingernails.

My father has lost his mind. In his principled stance against his bad neighbors, we worked half a day only to be defeated by a dilapidated fence. But I still had fun. Often times in life, it's the crazy people that know how to have the most fun. I guess bad fences make good father-son relationships.