Posted on 06/28/2004 9:09:55 AM PDT by ijcr
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:42:32 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
BOWLING GREEN, Va. -- Lawyer and part-time cattle farmer John F. Ames got off on the wrong foot with his new neighbors in the 1980s when he invoked a 17th-century law to compel them to pay for part of the fence around his 675-acre estate.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Dam* shark. Too bad he got bail.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Well if the guy was trespassing, and considering the constant mischief, I wouldn't count on this guy being convicted.
Typical lawyer, at least some of them. Move in and ream the neighbors.
Too bad the neighbor was killed, though I would have probably reacted to the shyster the same way.
Hope the bloodsucker is convicted and gets the max.
Another neighbor, Oliver Perry Brooks, was less accommodating. He never paid, despite a 1991 state Supreme Court ruling siding with Mr. Ames. He also periodically cut or removed portions of the fence, fueling a bitter feud that ended with Mr. Ames' arrest in the April shooting death of Mr. Brooks, 74.
What's John Ames FReeper screen name?
An alternative reading of this article indicates that the stiff was a free-loader.
Sounds to me like the wrong guy died. Ames was asking for a shootin from the day he moved in. Another rich guy coming in and pushing his weight around. Who ever heard of anyone being charged for the grass a couple of heifers ate? It looks like if Ames couldnt beat you in court he had no qualms at shooting you. 5 shots is a lot of shootin in self defense. hen a guy had a stick against you. If Ames beats this case I would urge his neighbors to not carry a stick to the next gunfight.Come armed ,come ready.
"Typical lawyer, at least some of them. Move in and ream the neighbors. "
Maybe you didn't read the article...Ames used the law, and the state Supreme Court sided with him. He was in the right, and his stupid neighbor kept damaging his property.
Your reaction is just typical knee-jerk lawyer hating.
Sounds like "Good Neighbor" Brooks thought himself above the law and picked at the situation until he got what he was asking for.
Just one of the reasons why I bought a home with no "common boundaries" with others.
My property is 15 acres shaped in a triangle. Two sides are county roads, the third side is a fairly large stream that serves as a property line.
The writing of this article is slanted against Ames. It looks to me like the victim had been tearing down fences maliciously, and there are some people who take property rights very seriously. Me, for one.
A law from the 1600's. He must have looked far and wide for that one.
Now let's see if the law will convict him.
Ames sounds like he needs to be shot.
LOL...you beat me to it.
Your reaction is just typical knee-jerk lawyer hating.
Right! And that stupid lawyer-hating neighbor deserved killin'.
Sheesh, there are a bunch of freepers here who just don't read the articles, I guess. It's easy to see how rumors ant lynchmobs get started.
You'd shoot someone for enforcing their property rights? Are you on the right forum? As for that "17th Century law," I can tell you that, as of the late 1990's, Indiana had a similar one on the books.
So you think the lawyer should be able to move in next door and charge you half for putting up a fence?
Seems to me the wrong guy died.
Lots of knee-jerking goin' on.
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