Why The Fortress?

We live in the old school in Manassas, which many of you know is on the west side of Henry Street, the north-south connector between 280 and 292 on the east side of Tattnall County. I’ve been asked before why this place looks the way it does.

We moved in the day before Halloween, 2014, just as our son was finishing his electrical engineering degree at Georgia Southern. He graduated that December. In mid-January, 2015, we were in Statesboro celebrating and helping him pack, when our place was burglarized, and sexual threats left by the burglars for my wife and then 12-year old daughter. For a short time thereafter, some items left outside were vandalized. Cars would drive through our place day and night, and some would even park, often in pairs. Previously, one individual, who impersonated a police officer, said he was there to make a drug deal. Other intruders would bang on walls and doors, usually at night, and then run away on foot like zombies on meth.

As you might expect, I grew weary of this behavior and began barricading the place to put an end to the nonsense. Enough of this kind of thing, and even Andy Taylor will start building a wall around Mayberry. In this case, Andy Taylor is a former Marine.

Some of you might have noticed the barbed-wire and timber East German barricades I had at the end of Campground Road for a while. One small white car even shot through this barrier complex while it was under construction like it was the driver’s last bid for freedom from advancing Soviets. The rest of my own personal iron curtain consists of an array of pine timbers along the road, some of which remain to this day. Also remaining are selected barbed-wire and electric fence deployments, which have done their job remarkably well. We also began installing cameras and security lights. You may have also noticed that at night my place is lit up like a UFO landing in the forest with its high beams on.

What does all this have to do with Leech City and our own personal official leeches? I’ll get to that.

But for now, yeah, this place is kind of a fortress. I’m thinking about digging some moats, too. And filling them with sharks. With laser beams on their heads.