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Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
Two brothers' farms
Had an odd conversation today with a neighbor as I was walking the street and passing out flyers for our Blockwatch. He told me to be careful and said he was from a farming family, and that there's an old tradition that two brothers shouldn't own farms that ajoin. They can be close, but not exactly neighbors, and that is why one should keep largely to themselves. He is from Scotland. He then told me I was "brave" for trying to organize the Blockwatch.
Anyone have any background on this tradition or have a good analysis for the caution?
Maybe Scotland has poor plot survey and many disputes over where property lines lie??? Either that or something to do with pixies.............D should know!
Sounds to me like a variation on the "good fences make good neighbors" proverb, which dates back to the 17th century according to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Anyone have any background on this tradition or have a good analysis for the caution?
The cautionary measure your friend recommends is rooted in the nearly proverbial wisdom of our ancestors. As a classic aphorism of Ancient Roman Law [101] admonishes ... " vicinitas discordiarum mater" [=proximity mothers conflicts]
The neighbors' blood kinship simply exacerbates the point, as conflicts between siblings are ever so emotionally charged, more than any disagreement between unrelated parties is.
I only know of here there was one brother who built a house on the family farm land .. the second could build and put in for planning , but there was an objection raised by the first brother .. so he couldn't build where he wanted and had to build somewhere else ... The first brother said he didnt want to live next to him ... I remember thinking it was a bit extreme at the time .. but maybe it keeps you better friends if you dont have to 'out up' with each other on a daily basis and can choose when you meet up ... more than that I dont know ...
Had an odd conversation today with a neighbor as I was walking the street and passing out flyers for our Blockwatch. He told me to be careful and said he was from a farming family, and that there's an old tradition that two brothers shouldn't own farms that ajoin. They can be close, but not exactly neighbors, and that is why one should keep largely to themselves. He is from Scotland. He then told me I was "brave" for trying to organize the Blockwatch.
He sounds pretty creepy to me, Miguel. The story of the two brothers' adjacent farms seems unrelated to your situation, but his admonition that "one should keep largely to one's self," and his comment that you were "brave" for trying to organize the Blockwatch appear to be thinly veiled warnings. He may be harmless, he may be deliberately threatening in an odd way, or he may be off his Meds. In any case, I would keep my distance and avoid eye-contact if I were you.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
We lived for a while in a small neighborhood south of the Lousiana State University campus in Baton Rouge. There was a neighborhood association. Gaines B., our next door neighbor and contemporary (early 30s in the early 1970s) was a civic minded fellow. For his pains he got elected President of the association, not a job he particularly wanted.
The next day after the election was Saturday. As usual we sat for a while in the back yard with a cold beer. Gaines told of the handoff from the previous President, a guy in his late 60s.
The old President said, "3:30 or 4:00 AM is a good time to go around checking license plates."
"Um, what would be the purpose of that?" Gaines asked.
"Well, you don't want someone sleeping with the wrong woman when her husband's away."
"So what did you say, Gaines?" I asked.
"Not a thing. Nodded my head and went on to the next subject."
"So what if they ask for a report at the next monthly meeting, on who is sleeping with whom?"
"Dammit, Richard, I haven't thought that far ahead yet."
Now there's a neighborhood watch web app. Fortunately I live in one of the safest neighborhoods in Austin, partly because many people think it is in Williamson County, rather than Travis County, where it really is. Williamson County has a long standing reputation for being tough on crime.
A couple of months after my daughter became Appeals Prosecutor and second in command or the Williamson County District Attorney's Office (she's in private practice now) I asked her at lunch whether she had any good stories.
"Yes. This guy robbed a bank in a little town a couple of counties north of here. The cops got onto him much sooner than he thought they would. They were chasing him south on I-35. When they got into Williamson County they pretty much had him surrounded. He got on his cell phone and said that if they would just let him get to Travis County, he would stop and give himself up. Guy wasn't bright enough to know he was going to be tried in the county where he robbed the bank, but he sure didn't want to be tried in Williamson County."
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