|  Bob Batz Read Bob's bio and previous columns
May 29, 2009
How to Solve the World’s
Problems: Get Rid of Fences!
I think I’ve figured out what’s wrong with the world these
days.
Fences, that’s what’s wrong with the world.
Fences are terrible devices, you know. God didn’t invent fences. Man
invented fences.
Nobody really knows which man actually built the first fence. Maybe it was a
guy named William Fence, or maybe Cecil Fence.
Once, a long, long time ago before automobiles, roll-on deodorant and TV
commercials, there were no fences and the world stretched unrestrained as
far as the eye could see. Then along came some guy who said to himself, “I
think I’ll invent a fence,“ and he did.
As near as I can tell, fences have two purposes. Some are designed to keep
people and animals in. Others are built to keep people and animals out.
Some fences are rather attractive, like picket fences . . . and those quaint
split-rail fences that conjure up visions of a young Abe Lincoln. Most
fences, however, are ugly as hell, especially those chain-link fences that
are all the rage these days.
If you ask me, the world would be a much better place if there weren’t any
fences.
People talk a lot about world peace and brotherhood and stuff like that.
Maybe they could attain those things if they started tearing down the fences
that divide them.
When I was a kid, we had a neighbor. I think her name was
Miss Pendergrass – or something like that. Miss Pendergrass was very old and
very mean. Nobody knew just how old she was, but rumor had it she had been a
waitress at The Last Supper.
Anyway, Miss Pendergrass had a fence around her house that
was next door to the rock-strewn field where all of us kids played baseball
on delicious summer evenings, and every time one of our baseballs went over
the fence and into her yard she would keep the ball and then telephone the
local police, the FBI and the National Guard.
Miss Pendergrass was the only person in our neighborhood with
a fence around her house, and for that reason most people in the
neighborhood disliked her.
When Miss Pendergrass passed away, she left her entire estate
to her 11 pet cats.
But, as it worked out, the cats didn’t do all that well because her entire
estate consisted of $1.93, two shares of stock in a long-defunct buggy whip
factory in New Jersey . . . and 4,356 scuffed-up baseballs.
Contact Bob at
bbatz@woh.rr.com
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