Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan


Sunday, February 26, 2012

Orwellian Rhapsody

It's been a few years now since I built that cabin.  She was a stout little thing that was built entirely with logs and planks from the land on which it sat, almost a half mile off the road on the hundred acres I had purchased with 40 years of savings.  The twelve by twelve size reflected the maximum allowable structure that required no permit.

Permits.  I often wondered as I worked the land, fell the tress, cut and fitted the logs, how would Thoreau react to the modern permit process?  The cabin at Walden Pond was built on Emerson's land.  Emerson and Thoreau, the two eminent transcendentalists, bastions of self-reliance, proponents of individual freedom and civil disobedience.  What a sight to behold, the two  sagacious philosophers wrestling with the Draconian rules, regulations, inspections, certifications, and the exacting codes defining the principles and practices of the craft.  Would there be anything left to their own devises, their natural talents, their keen intellect?  Most likely not; the government has surgically extracted the human element from the entire process.

So I was let to build the cabin, which I called Little Walden, by virtue of its compliant size, without benefit of a permit.  I was able to fell a good amount of tall white pine in the range of 8-10 inches.  A portable sawmill was brought in to cut planks for the floor, rafters and purlins for the roof.  The air was filled with the scent of 70 years growth as the dust and chips of the fitted logs covered the surrounding earth.  There is a certain love, a symbiotic kinship that happens when man puts his saw to a tree base. The tree will protect the man from the rain and snow and cold winter winds.  For the tree, a noble fit for posterity, instead of growing old, growing bare, and toppling to the forest floor.  Here the tree was born again, entering its new life as an integral part of my history.  It will be central in the life of its dweller; home, sanctuary, and safe haven.

So the labor of the spring and summer yielded a sturdy little cabin in the north woods, tight to the weather and with no loss of the clean fresh smell of nature.  Completed with a bunk and a small wood stove, Little Walden came to life and I settled in.  Days were filled with  cutting firewood, reading, writing, and wandering about the woodland.  Nights were spent in front of the campfire, looking up at the starts, and wondering after the nature of things.

One day in late summer I had a visitor.  The local building inspector, or code enforcement officer as they like to be called, drove down the long driveway to inspect the project which heretofore had not required inspection.  Of course, a little thing like the law never stopped the law.   Amiable and proud, I presented Little Walden in the best possible light, intimating all the arduous intricacies of solitary labor; the cutting;  the dragging;  the lifting with pulleys and gin poles.

The officer began measuring the cabin.  "This structure is 14 x 14 feet."  He said.  The tape measure zipped to a close.

"It's 12 x 12; I built it that size so I wouldn't have to bother with permits and inspections," I said, slow enunciating the last word.

"You have one foot overhangs all round, that makes the structure 14 x 14, I'm afraid it's out of compliance.  You can either cut the overhangs back or tear the building down."

"I need overhangs, a flush roof line wouldn't do well to the weather, especially with the winters we have up here."  The blood rushed to my head and I felt a hot pounding in my face.  This is the very thing I sought to avoid.  The beauty of solitude, the peace and serenity that I held so dear was being pierced with a cold spear by this bloodless bureaucrat.  "The property line is over 1000 feet on each side, over 2000 feet off the road, and miles of state land out back, what possible impact could overhangs have?"

"It's the law."  He said as he returned to his vehicle, "I'll send you something in the mail."  His car bounced away down the driveway.

It's the law.  It was the standard justification for any mindless restriction regardless of how it impacted the individual.  It's the law.  I returned to my chores of cruising the land for standing dead trees and splitting firewood for the coming winter.  At night I read by lantern light.  But my thoughts were tormented by the little bureaucrat who I knew would not go away.  Those type of people, and those type of laws never go away.  A week later a letter of non-compliance came in the mail, with an order to tear the cabin down.  I ignored the order.  My thoughts turned to Thoreau, and his civil disobedience.  Thoreau stood for what he believed in, to the point of being arrested and jailed.  I could certainly stand up to this absurd technicality.  But my serenity had been sullied, and the peaceful quietude of my backwoods home broken.

Over the next few months I received more notices.  Fines were levied and added to my tax bills.  Occasionally the code officer drove half way down the driveway to see if the cabin was still standing.  Still more notices would arrive in the mail.  I didn't want to engage in civil disobedience, this was not 1850 and I was not Henry David Thoreau.  I just wanted to be left alone to live in my little cabin.  Sleepless nights, distracted reading, uncertainty hung over me like a guillotine.

Then one day a county sheriff came and issued a bench warrant.  Again I felt the hot pounding as the bile of rage welled up inside me.  In a rant I showed him the little cabin, I showed him the acres and acres surrounding it.  I told hm I just want to be left alone.  Finally, I told him I would cut the overhangs back to make the cabin compliant.  He sympathized but told me I had to comply with the order and remove the structure.  Structure.  My little cabin that I bled so many time for called a structure by these robots.  He said it was the law and he was just doing his job.  The sheriff drove away.

I refused to appear in town court and two months later another sheriff came to arrest me.  He asked me to identify myself as he grabbed my arm and reached for his handcuffs.  I pushed him away, he took a step backward and tripped over one of the many logs I had from cutting and splitting wood.  I retreated quickly to my cabin and locked the door.  I was in a rage, confused, disheartened and I knew somehow that this was the end of my serenity and solitude.  All my life I had worked for this one dream, to live in the woods away from people; away from their noise, away from their petty attitudes and cliches.

The sheriff had returned to his car and his radio.  I sat on my bunk with my head in my hands.  Civil disobedience had turned ugly, why had I not just cut those overhangs back.  But why didn't they recognize when a person just wants to be left alone, in peace, not bothering anyone, not asking for anything.  With all the bad people in the world and all the people getting hurt;  why were they picking on me?  In a short while two more police cars arrived.  Five uniforms broke down the cabin door.  I remembered building and hanging that door.  They arrested me and took me away.  When Thoreau was arrested, several friends contributed and paid his fines and gathered him out of jail.  No one came for me.

Its been a few years now and I'm writing this letter from the Brantingham jail.  The charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer were levied;  compounded by my sullen, taciturn attitude and lack of cooperation resulted in a five year sentence.  The land has been sold.  I'm tired now; I don't believe I could ever do that again.  I don't know where I'll live when I get out, maybe an apartment somewhere in the city.  I stopped reading.  I stopped writing.  The light of freedom no longer burns brightly inside me.  But sometimes, at night, when I'm lying in my bunk, I can still smell the fragrance of freshly cut pine.