I have a nice neighbor, his name is Richard, and I see him once in a while when is is talking a walk or preparing his RV for another big trip around the country.

I could not help wondering if I have the right to go into his house and take some of his stuff and now call it my own. No, actually, that would be too greedy, let's say I keep the plasma TV and give all the silverware to Joe, the toaster to Eveline, and the stamp collection to Eric. That would be OK, right?

Obviously that would not be OK, because I just don't have the right to do that.

But let's think about something else - how about I really want to have paved sidewalks in our neighborhood and everybody should like them too because this makes the street look more orderly, the rain drains better and overall it will improve the value of the houses in our street. There are ten houses in our street and six of the owners want that too.

What are we going to do with the other four, Eric, Henry, Joe and Robert? Obviously, as we are six against four we just make them participate. Now the question only is, shall we do it ourselves or should we hire contractors. As we are all rather busy we decide on contractors. These contractors today - they want an advance, where are the times when a hand shake was worth something?

But don't let me get on that subject. What's necessary right now is collecting the money. $50,000 divided by 10 makes just $5,000 for each. Can you believe this, Eric, Henry, Joe and Robert don't want to pay! Again! So, we go to their house, ransack though all their drawers and finally find a stash of money under the mattress. As we are already at it, we take $10,000 from each, just for the next time when they don't want to pay their fair share.

That should be OK, right - it's for the common good - and, by the way - it makes the streets safer for the children!

"Hey - TIME-OUT! - I actually think I don't have the right to do that.

But now, there must be a way...

What about I set up a campaign and get all the owner in the street behind me, and we think about how much nicer we can make our street if we can just organize everything better that needs to be done. Joe is on board when I tell him that we can get a bus stop right at the end of the street so that the kids can take the bus to school instead of him driving. Richard needs the street a little bit wider because his RV is rather large, and I insure him that we will be able to do that as well.

Eveline has some breathing problems and really wants to ban all diesel powered vehicles at least two miles away. I think we can handle that as well - I have to get some idea what we will do about the buses, but we can certainly hire some experts that will find a solution.

It gives me such a great feeling of being a real good person because I will be able to get everybody in the street what they need. A little bit needs to be paid to me because, after all, I will do all the work, and I don't really have time any more to write programs for some people - now I have more important things to do!

With all this in place and the room addition housing my new official office all paid for by the street council, we can revisit the project "paved side walks." Unbelievable, but Henry and Robert still make trouble and don't want to pay their fair share and on top of that endangering our kids! OK, we all don't have young kids any more, but that's beside the point.

Now with everything all official and elected, I just hire a local bully - have to dream up a nice title for him - procter, maybe - and have him go collect the taxes from Henry and Robert. Fortunately, Eric and Joe had come to their senses and submitted their fair share voluntarily.

Live is good!

Sometimes at night I get a strange feeling that there still is something not quite right and that nobody could not have given me a right they they did not have to begin with - - but a few glasses of Scotch and perhaps a few Valium usually handles that problem.

Life is good!