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.

Have you ever judged a neighbor?

Me? I have.

I was working on our front yard one summer, digging all of the turf out by hand and relandscaping it to attract more birds. It took weeks. At first I felt like a stranger in my own neighborhood, because I was never really home during daytime hours. It was an older neighborhood, mostly little houses from the 1920s lined up along a narrow, cracked street. People passed through on foot on their way to town. After a time, I started to fall into the rhythms of the daytime neighborhood, knowing when the postman would come and saying "hi" to the same people every day as they walked by.

And I dug away at the grass, envisioning the spiritual and physical fortification that came with manual labor.

One day I straightened up to stretch my back and looked at the tiny rental house across the street, with its sad, dried up lawn and brown flowers. New neighbors. As if on cue, a toddler appeared in the front doorway and looked at me. I had seen this baby in the doorway before. I smiled and waved. Inside, the house was dark, but I could see the baby’s mother sitting in a recliner like a statue, probably watching TV. A fan rotated near the open door. A television was blaring some ridiculous game show sounds. The baby smiled at me and started to step on to the front porch.

From inside the house came a screeching sound, and I realized it was the mother statue yelling at the kid to get back in the house. The baby’s foot froze in mid-air between the front door and the step. She backed up and started to cry. 

Seriously? I thought. We get in trouble if we want to see the outside world over there?

The next day I decided to take note of what was going on across the street, which wasn't hard to do since the street was so narrow: A youngish father figure leaves early in morning. Door opens, releasing TV sounds. Mother in chair. Sun shining. Beautiful day. Baby tries to step outside. Mother screeches. Father figure comes home in late afternoon. 

For the love of God and nature and all that is good, get off your ass and take your kid outside! I thought.

My days of blissful digging were over. I was now digging with anger and angst--not at all zen. I wondered if keeping a child indoors all day in the summer was considered child neglect. I thought about running the hose in my overwhelming yard of dirt and letting the kid play in the mud. I pictured myself marching across the street and reading that woman the riot act. (I've always wanted to read the riot act.) But mostly, I comforted myself with the notion that I would never be that kind of mother.

A few days later, the father figure pulled up. He caught my eye. I felt embarrassed for spying on them in plain sight but wondered if he knew what was going on over there all day. Maybe I should tell him? I thought. He spoke first.

"Are you the one that's been doing all the work over here?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, leaning on my shovel.

“Well, you’re pretty talented. The yard is looking great. My wife used to be quite the gardener, too. You probably wouldn’t know it now.” He looked at his house, pausing to sigh. “Yeah, it’s pretty hard for her to do that kind of thing now. She went almost completely blind when she was pregnant with our daughter. She got gestational diabetes and can hardly see anything. It’s so hard because I have to be gone at work during the day. Well, anyway, nice job on the yard. I’d best get inside.”

"Okay."

I. Am. An. Asshole.

In a fictional version of this story, I realize they need help and take mother and child to the park and get everyone in the neighborhood to pitch in on their yard. We really spruce things up. We even put in a fence so the kid can go outside without wandering into the street.

But in the autobiographical version, I don't do that. In the real version, I am too stuck in my own program to walk across the street and introduce myself. I am too ashamed of thoughts never spoken to ever actually speak to her.


And you? Have you ever judged a neighbor?