AlanShearer wrote:
Not local to Apple Valley, but I have work up there every so often. I live down the hill.
ah. man. i was hoping for a neighbor.
guys like this one are quite common up our way. when i first moved here, 18 years ago, i decided i wanted to run a particular loop. but it went thru this one guy's property, he lived in a delapidated, not close being permitted or in the grid, unfinished shack/house, all sorts of skull & crossbones, crossed rifles, signs and warnings, barbed wire, you'll die if you cross this line.
so i ran into his compound, he walked out of his house, guy who lived there alone, i signaled i wanted to come up, he waived me in, i told him what my purpose was, intent to run across his property, he invited me inside, we talked for awhile. he was an economic professor at cal state northridge. he erected all that stuff to scare people off. including his meth lab neighbors a mile or two away, whom he didn't much like.
he was a regular guy, but, then you have to ask yourself who lives like that. we have a lot of people like that around where i live. most are not notorious. but most are very handy, like the rocketeer obviously was. where i live, my neighbors, it gives you a bit of a look back at what it might have been like to live when this whole area was homesteaded a century and more ago. it's a sociological - and manskills - experience living in a place like this.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
