Building Privacy

MY NEIGHBORS to the north are erecting a privacy fence. The several families who have lived in that house over the past twelve years have all talked about it, but this family is actually doing it. The support posts are up, right on the property line, the concrete has hardened. When it is finished I shall be entirely surrounded by fences, my large yard hemmed in on all sides. I myself have a wall of green encircling my half acre; trees and shrubs, which I planted when I built the house. So, no complaints. I'm the last hold out, the only suburban home in America without a brown wooden privacy fence. As long as the state, local, and federal privacy fence police don't come jack booting through my door, I may be safe. If they catch me unfenced, I suppose I'll comply, become a true American, and surround myself with a brown wooden box. My neighbors tell me that theirs will be green. I've never seen a green privacy fence before, and am eager to see it. They say they need it to keep in their dogs and young children, and I can understand that; but wouldn't a modest chain link structure do just as well? No, apparently not. Privacy is paramount in America. Now they'll never have to see me again, and I suppose that is enough to motivate anybody. All privacy fences start out bright clean light brown, straight and proud, then, over the years they inevitably fade to dull grey, the boards warp in all directions and break off at the top, gaps appear, and they turn ugly. I keep wondering if there is a way to paint and preserve them, but if there is, rarely do people go to the trouble to apply it. if I were to go to the trouble and expense of building a big wooden fence, I think I would take the time to preserve it with a coat of varnish or lamination, or whatever works. Americans are obviously in love with privacy fences, and I've never figured out why. Nude sun bathing perhaps? Marijuana cultivation, or other clandestine criminal activity? Or just a yearning to put distance between the crib and the outside world, like tinted windshields, sun glasses, and earphones? Nobody can see in, but neither can you see out, beyond your own yard. That wouldn't appeal to me. I can catch glimpses beyond my hedgerow, and its alive. Privacy fences fit the American character well; we are a fiercely independent people, who want to barricade ourselves from the world, and deal with it on our terms only. I have a friend from Shanghai, China who said to me: "you Americans are the loneliest people in the world! You care more about your dogs and cats than you care about each other." I told him: "you got that right!" He also said: "In America, you take your dog for a walk. In china, we put dog in 'wok'". I thought that was pretty clever, and I congratulated him on his understanding of American culture. With privacy fences, not only do we not have to go out in public and walk our dogs, but we can do whatever we want with our dogs, and nobody will ever know.