There's a fence at the golf course. Which side am I on?

I drive past three golf courses on my way to work. They all used to be farms.

The highway cuts through one of these former farms-turned-courses, and a chain link fence separates a stretch of wild grasses and blackberries along the road from the carefully groomed greens. Over the years I've seen an old man or two with 5-gallon buckets, searching the tall grass for golf balls, a pursuit similar to collecting pop cans. "Ball hawks," they're sometimes called.

The other day as I was driving home, the sun was shining and I glimpsed a golf cart and players in their regulation golf apparel near the chain link fence. With-it, organized, groomed, relaxed. Shirts tucked in. On the other side of the fence was a couple with a child, maybe 8 or 9 years old, searching the grass.  Their car, an old, beat-up thing, was parked along the highway. I had never seen them there before, and I absentmindedly wondered if there were territory disputes among ball hawks, like there were with mushroom hunters. Would the old men mind them being there?

Then I glanced in my mirror and saw the child bend over and pick something up. And I suddenly saw what I was seeing. And what I saw was that fence.

That fence creates a world of players that can be separate from the world of gatherers. That fence--completely transparent, mind you--allows those players to keep playing their game without having to fear or even acknowledge the little family collecting those stray balls.

As I drove by, I wondered which side of the fence I belonged on. There have been times in the past when I felt like I was there in the weeds, living on a very meager income. Nowadays, though, I might be able to afford to play golf if I wanted to, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to. So I imagined myself walking precariously along the metal pipe at the top of that fence, not wanting to fall into the course and learn to ignore the people in the grass, but not wanting to fall in the grass and have to compete with them for the golf balls.

And I think about all those models of revolution and reformation that could also find a metaphor here...we could stand up and tear out the fence and let it all go back to the blackberries! We could force the players into the blackberry bushes and let the family play on the course! Or tear out the fence and make the whole world one big, happy golf course!

By the time I got home, the only thing I could figure for sure is that an 8-year-old kid and his parents shouldn't have to go out and search for golf balls after school.