Dan's Papers - June 22, 2007

I live in a house that is on a hillside overlooking Three Mile Harbor. The house is about halfway up the hill. Some time ago, I thought that further up the hill, near the top of my property, it would be nice to build a little bandstand or gazebo. You could sit in it and look out. If the view from the house is good, the view from the top of the property is spectacular.

The process to get approval for this, however, was enormously complicated. There were sideyard and backyard setbacks, there were pyramid laws and footprint maximums and then I learned I would need planning board approval because the property is so close to the water and perhaps they'd want me to do an environmental impact statement.

I gave up on the idea of building something. It would take a small fortune, meeting after meeting and years in the making, just so I could have a place to sit up there and look out over my property and the water.

But I still wanted to have a place to sit up there. I thought of tents and wooden platforms, I thought of having a folding chair up there with a market umbrella, and maybe a brick platform upon which to put it all. No dice, said the building department. If it's a structure, even a platform, you have to go through the process.

At this point, my mind started thinking outside of the box. What if, instead of putting something on TOP of the ground, I dug something INTO the ground? Indeed, the steepness of the hill suggested that very idea. I would dig a hole, but it would actually be a notch. I'd put stones in the back of the notch for a backrest and then maybe another big flat stone on top of some other stones to make a seat.

I did that. And when it was done, I went up there and sat. It was beautifully done, if I did say so myself. It looked perfectly natural. Just a bunch of rocks that, for some reason, were comfortable to sit on. An extra plus was that on a nice day, with the sun shining down, the stones were nice and warm.

The first day I was up there, I contemplated the goodness of life and so forth. I decided I would go up there a lot. I thought of many things that first day, including the very satisfactory fact that I had somehow scooted around all the various town boards without spending even one dime. The seat was comfortable. Life was good. I stayed up there maybe fifteen minutes, then walked down on a dirt path I had flattened with my feet through the grass toward the house.

This is really nice, is what I thought as I beheld what I had built from the back screen door. It looks like I have uncovered some ancient ruin on my hillside, is what I thought. Lucky me.

The next day I went up there again, planning to enjoy what might be a half hour of meditation. But this time, after just twenty seconds, I heard a rustling sound next to me. I leaped up. It was a snake, sunning himself on the warm stones just two inches from where I had sat. He glared at me. And he did that thing with his tongue. So I ran away and down the path to the house. And I have not been back since. That was two years ago.

Sometimes people are at the house and see the stone notch on the hill with the little seat and say, wow that's really neat, can I go up there and just sit for a while and enjoy the view?

If I like them, I warn them about the snake. If I don't much like them, I say sure. Help yourself.