Progress waits for no one. Earl, may I call you Earl? I said he could call me Mr. Dawson, and I’d appreciate his keeping his people off my land. He smiled wider. Of course. I’m sure we can work something out. I left thinking maybe I’d gotten through to him. Maybe a reasonable conversation could fix this.
I know what you’re thinking. That’s it? You just asked nicely and expected a bully to back down. Yeah, I did. Because I was raised to believe that if you treat people with respect, they’ll return the favor. Took me 62 years to learn that only works when the other person has respect to give. Harmon didn’t. He was just buying time.
The next night, they came through again. 11:43 p.m. I know because I was still awake, sitting in the dark, watching the road. The light bar lit up my bedroom ceiling. Blue, red, blue, red. And I heard the engine roar past my house, through my pasture, out the east side, gone in 30 seconds. But those 30 seconds told me everything. Harmon hadn’t spoken to anyone.
He’d probably laughed about my visit over drinks at the clubhouse. The old man came to complain. Can you believe it? I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until dawn. The social pressure started within days. I noticed it first at the feed store in town. Larry, the owner, had known me for 20 years.
This time, he barely made eye contact, rang up my order, gave me my change, and turned away before I could ask about his daughter’s wedding. Then it was the gas station, the diner. People I had known my whole life are suddenly finding reasons not to talk to me. I found out why a week later when Linda Morales, a woman from Ridgewood, who had always waved when she drove past, stopped her car at my gate.
