TRESPASSERS

SHOT. SURVIVORS PROSECUTED.

The sign was the largest

and rudest of a series of Keep Off, No Trespassing, and

Private Property signs we were seeing as we meandered up

Trout Creek off the St. John's River. The swampy forest

to our left was labeled Deercreek Game Preserve, with a

Florida legal code attached to warnings that trespassers

would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

For all its suggestion of

being public land, I believe that acreage was as

privately owned as the rundown fish camps on the other

bank. As we passed a dock studded with hand-painted

warnings about not "parking" boats near the gas

pump and asserting the proprietorship of the ramshackle

premises, we commented on how unwelcoming was the mat

this business extended to passersby.

I've been thinking about

some odd contrasts between our law and the customs of

other societies. In a fifth grade classroom recently I

was reminded of the fact that the nations that settled

this continent before we of European descent arrived had

no concept of the private ownership of land. The land

belonged to everyone or to no one. The people used the

land but did not own it, sell it, subdivide it, inherit

or bequeath it. Odd then that we brought to the New World

the notion that we not only could own land, but could

simply claim it for ourselves in the absence of the

Indians' proof of ownership. And that which we own, we

believe we can prohibit others from using or controlling.

This arrogance was

exemplified in a recent local editorial in which a

landowner asserts that he has the right to cut down every

tree on his property because he owns it and everything on

it. Never mind that the air I breathe depends on trees

like his to replenish it with oxygen, or that his trees

add softness and beauty to the world through which I

move.

I know, I know, this is one

of those "rights" we Americans hold dear, and

anyone who suggests that certain things - like

forests and air and water and space - should be held

in common is a Communist.

But who owns a butterfly?

The interesting thing about

this is that our legal tradition is also pretty clear

about ownership where water is concerned: generally

speaking, water is considered to belong to the public

where it moves through or beside property, at least to

the public in transit. The right of way of mariners, in

fact, is sacrosanct on bodies like the Intracoastal

Waterway, where highway traffic is stopped and bridges

are open to give even small pleasure craft priority to

proceed.

Sure, there are cases in

the courts of landowners wishing to fence creeks or

prevent the passage of canoeists and rafters, but by and

large, the courts grant the public the right to traverse

waterways in this country. But in every country I've

visited in Europe, the same is also true about

privately-owned land.

So long as hikers or Sunday

strollers treat property respectfully they are not only

allowed on but welcomed to privately held land. Most

farmers provide stiles or gates to accommodate walkers in

their fields; paved paths across pastures and through

woodlands are extensive (Peachtree City was by no means

the first town to pave a path system).

Not that these observations

mean the attitude of Europeans to strangers is warmer

than ours. Au contraire, mon ami. Somewhere in these

conflicting symptoms of American hubris and European

commonality a flip-flop occurs. Again, commenting very

broadly, Americans are among the friendliest people on

earth, edged out, perhaps, by Australians.

Our German-resident

daughter Mary is struck anew whenever she's in the States

well as with visitors. Strangers think nothing of

striking up a conversation in public, shopkeepers are

usually actually helpful, or try to be, and public

servants here often seem to forget that servitude was

historically considered demeaning.

(Public courtesy is

expected in most European countries, of course, but

friendliness? Not generally. Dave and I get really

defensive, however, when we hear Americans perpetuate the

myth that the French are rude. They are not. They may not

fawn over tourists, but our experience has been that a

Frenchman on the street will return a smile and an effort

at conversation, whereas a German will look suspicious.)

I'm not sure what all this

means, that Americans are possessive of that which they

cannot really possess, yet invariably friendly toward

strangers as well as acquaintances. A complex tribe, we

are, shaped by the bigness of the land we purloined,

while perhaps unconsciously bound by a sense of kinship

in spite of our polyglot ancestries or because of our

shared history.

Who owns a butterfly

indeed?

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