* * * * *
                                        
           “If you build it, they will come, but NOT IN MY BACKYARD!”
                                        
> “I'm all for Wiffle ball and apple pie and baseball and the American flag,
> but there are plenty of fields in town they can use instead of building
> something in people's backyard,” said Liz Pate, who is building a new house
> behind what's now home plate. “If I come home at 6 at night after working
> all day, I want peace and quiet. I can't have that. I have dozens of people
> behind my house playing Wiffle ball. If their parents think this is so
> great, let them play at their house.”
> 

Via Instapundit [1], “Build a Wiffle Ball Field and Lawyers Will Come [2]”

As a kid, I remember my friend Duke and me wandering out alone in the forests
that surrounded his house at Connestee Falls [3] (which wasn't the gated
community that it is now) for hours at a time, and later, roaming around the
neighborhood when his family moved into Brevard [4] proper.

I also remember wiping out rather spectacularly a few times on my bike (say,
landing in a ditch, twice, same one, same day, trying the same stupid trick
each time) and managing to come out okay (bloody, but no broken bones and a
greater skepticism of my “elite” skills on a bicycle).

My, how times have changed.

At times, I really wonder what happened to us, how did we as a nation become
so fearful? So coddling [5]?

Where did we go wrong?

But rest assured, whatever happened, it wasn't in my back yard.

Sheesh.

[1] http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/archives2/021485.php
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/nyregion/10towns.html?ex=1373428800&en=3a8a02a8cafa6c8e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
[3] http://www.connesteefalls.com/outside_home.asp
[4] http://www.brevardnc.org/
[5] gopher://gopher.conman.org/1Phlog:2003/04/23

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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