Pleasantville ain't often that purty

I'm thinking the manure spreader with its dead flowers and uncolor-coordinated duet of orange pumpkins would have to go. Then, there's the overflowing compost pile over in the north lawn. For the life of me, I haven't yet figured out what to do with it except keep adding to the ugliness with more grass clippings and dead plants.

Our yellow "wolf crossing" sign out at the end of the driveway would surely receive a big black checkmark. We'd also get docked whenever the opening to our green quansit reveals to all travelers on their way to the dump our assortment of implements, old beds, gas cans, bicycles, flower pots and baling wire strewn about inside. And, I know that even though I've straightened up that pile of cedar siding next to the quansit, we could get a big fine for allowing it to stay there.

That and a whole lot more would happen if the visual police ever came by our place with a checklist and a clipboard. Now, the assessor's appraiser might see it differently and tack on a whole bunch more tax money on our bill, but if we were part of a neighborhood covenant society out here in Selle, I'm sure the appointed association busybodies with their clipboards and discerning eyes would find reasons to give us a really low score on our visual pollution.

I saw personally how those places work when I visited my brother's place a few years ago. It's one of those neighborhoods where everyone's grass is cut at the same time so it will be the same height and the flowers are perfect. One morning, they gently advised me to put my bike inside the house rather than out on the porch where it could be seen.

I also felt a moment of particular rage years ago when we had to live in a condominium complex for a few months after our house burned down. I came home from school one afternoon to find our entire family's bikes strewn across the concrete in front of the condo instead of on the porch where we had left them that morning. When I went to the manager, I learned that the bicycle mess was his way of letting us know that we needed to put those bikes in a place where they couldn't be seen. It was part of "the rules."

Having had those experiences and being slightly independent-minded, I could identify with the people in today's Spokesman who're moving out of their neighborhood at Liberty Lake after a spy turned them in for the location of their unsightly Spokesman-Review paperbox. They were warned to remove it from wherever they'd decided to hang it or receive a fine.

The husband got so mad he took it down and threw it in the middle of their yard because there was no rule among the neighborhood list that forbid paperboxes on the lawn. The people had lived in the neighborhood with its rules for ten years, but it seems that the covenants have suddenly become rigidly and ridiculously enforced, thanks to the neighborhood busybodies. These paperbox people have chosen to move.

Recently, in our own local paper, I read about a couple who had the gall to construct a beautiful home---with some manufactured parts--oh my!---out in a similar neighborhood set-up in Cocolalla. Seems they even told everyone what their plans were for construction, but once the actual work started, they got slapped with threats from the association. And the same neighbors who had supported them before have suddenly abandoned them.

I see this situation as a two-sided coin. If people knowingly move into neighborhoods where these covenants are clearly stated and consistently enforced, they have only themselves to blame. I feel sorry for anyone who chooses this route for their home, mainly because I personally can't tolerate such nonsensical infringement on individuality.

Why do neighborhoods have to look so perfect anyway? Seems like taking pride in your home, keeping it neat, clean and attractive would be enough. And, to me, there's true beauty in individuality. I also think there's nothing uglier on the landscape than generic, impersonal uniformity. When you put all the "perfectly purty" you want in one spot, making it all look exactly like what's next door, it just ain't that purty anymore.

From what I've read in the two newspaper stories, past history in both neighborhoods indicates some rather glaring inconsistencies in covenant enforcement. Besides that, it seems like the self-appointed neighborhood watchdogs should lighten up a little. They should find some more productive ways of spending their time, rather than spying on their neighbors, noting all the rule infractions, and then tattling to their gestapo authority. Sure seems like a strange way to build a sense of community.

I thank God that the Meserves, the Caudles, the Taylors and even my lawyer friend Gary Finney from up the road don't give a hoot if I have a manure spreader in my front yard. And, they sure as heck know to leave me alone now that they've seen the "wolf crossing" sign at the end of the driveway. Pleasantville just ain't for everyone, especially me.