I had a visit the other day from a fellow who told me, "We don't need the likes of you around here."

He was referring to a humorous column I wrote last week about the troubles I was having moving a mobile home.

"I hope you stay in Virginia," he raved. This was just after I gave him the address to the owners as he asked. He said he was going to write them a letter. He was nice to me until he got the address. I would have given it to him whether or not he was nice. I suppose that the elitist tendencies in society are not gone entirely. That's sad.

He assumed that since I own an older mobile home, that it was a piece of junk. I happen to have a very nice mobile home (soon to go in on a nice wooded lot, I am pleased to say. I grew tired of battling the one county and just decided to do something else. Also worthy of note, the lot I was going to put the home on to start with was already inhabited by another 1967 mobile home. Isn't that a hoot?)

The fellow will be happy to know that I rent a home here. (It's the one with the lawnmower in the yard on N.C. 18 south, if you care to stop by).

The rental property is not on wheels, but I wouldn't be ashamed if it were. I don't feel like it makes a person any less or more by the walls they choose to surround themselves with. It is the character within and the way we treat others that marks us a good or bad human being in my humble, mobile-home-owning opinion.

In addition, being a young man, it is tough to get a start in an area where property values are as high as they are here. Most wealthy people didn't start out that way. I can honestly say that everything I have bought I have earned with my own hands (and head). I am not ashamed of that. You have to work your way up to a mansion. Such is life. I suppose it's kind of tough that my current mansion happens to have wheels, but I plan to work my way up to a real foundation one day. Maybe I'll even get a doublewide. Also worthy of note: I have "junk" cars, too. That might get me a one way ticket to you-know-where.

Just make sure there isn't any property for sale in your neighborhood -one of "us'uns" might move in and work on old cars for fun.

On a more serious note, I really found it hard to believe that anyone could take offense at a column designed to poke fun at the ranks of government bureaucracy.

It's just like I said before, so often you can write something and get ambushed later, never imagining that the article would upset anyone. I actually got about five positive calls and comments on the piece, versus the one person who wanted me rode out of town on a rail. The funny thing is, I am indigenous to this area - I have lived 90 percent of my life in these mountains within 35 minutes of Sparta. I would think that squatter's rights would get me something besides ostracized, but you never know. To tell you the truth, if I got upset every time I heard about what kind of (terrible) person I am, I would most likely not be around very long - death by crushed ego. The best thing I know to do is just smile and keep on keeping on.

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