I recently rode my bike 50 yards or so down a dead-ended “private road” in my hometown.
On my turn around, I heard a man who had been mowing his lawn, yell, “Can I help you?”
“I’m all set,” I said without totally looking to him.
He gave chase. And man, was he fast.
“Why are you running away?” he asked in a tone typical of the times.
I stopped. I told him I was just looking to see if they were still building houses there (as they had planned about a year earlier.)
“Why didn’t you just stop and ask me?” he followed. Then he ranted, “this is a private road, not a public road.”
I was thinking of the St. Louis couple who were all over the news defending their house with assault rifles. I had forgotten the local controversy that the houses would have been built on or near wetlands—the kind of thing people of the same race fight about even in “progressive” towns.
I confess I’m a serial offender, having taken pride in exploring “private” coastal roads on the North Shore and elsewhere. Still, I was shaken by this little man.
JOH NEJHE Blog 