North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

Some people live in sparsely-populated areas because they want a lot of land for growing fruit, and some people, apparently, live out there because no one wants to live near them.

Of course I can do what I want on my own land. (Within reason. If I installed a swimming pool, without a big fence around it, and a neighbor kid trespassed and drowned in it, I'd be legally and ethically at fault.) But I have enough sense of my own self interest to know that I should stay on good terms with the neighbors, and that includes not zapping their kids. When a deer gets zapped by an electric fence, it acquires a dislike for that garden. When a neighbor gets zapped, he acquires a dislike for the person who set up that fence. If that neighbor notices that, say, the dome light is on in my car in my driveway, do I want him to tell me so I can turn it off, or do I want him to say, to himself, "Ha ha, that b---- who zapped me with that electric fence when I was a kid is going to wake up to a dead car battery! Serves her right! I'd better not go tell her, since it's her property after all."?

Maybe I have a different perspective on this. Unlike you folks who grew up with real dangers out in the country, I never had to learn to take care of myself, since I grew up in New York City, which as everyone knows is perfectly harmless, since it's made entirely out of Nerf.

You may now resume your nostalgia about the good old days when everyone knew better than to do anything wrong, and/or your nostalgia about the great old tortures you inflicted on each other as children.

Melissa