Mending Wall (Photo credit: Sanctu)
“Good fences make good neighbors.” – taken from Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall“. I thought of this quote as I took a walk through my neighborhood today, an older neighborhood just outside of the city. You could somewhat tell the age of the residents by the kind of fence around the yard. Some are the old chain link or chicken fencing, as they used to call it. This was only used to keep pets and animals in or out, but still gave the ability to interact with the neighbors. Then there are the “stockade” fences – ever wonder why they call them by that name? Frost, unknowingly perhaps, addresses this also in his poem when he says “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense.” The 6 foot “privacy” fences are taking over neighborhoods. Too bad – I guess I would be asking the same question as the poet…
Do you have fences in your neighborhood? Can you tell what people are saying by the fences (walls) they put up?
Related articles
- Don’t Fence Me In! (open-line.org)
- Neighborly Fence Etiquette (savings.com)
