Fort Akiya

Go back and take a look at this photo from the last post. I haven’t seen such a level of craftsmanship in the service of protecting one’s property since the awesomely complex forts we used to build in the woods when I was a kid. Both the faux wrought iron post box in the foreground and the stacked pile of concrete blocks, rocks, lumber, ladders, plants (I even think there’s an abandoned washing machine in there somewhere) that protects the old man’s brown house from the street are actually illegal.

For building permits, we were told we’d need to show access, and contractors and even a friend in real estate told us that this road called for a setback of a couple feet on both sides, and that we could very likely get both of these irritants removed. They suggested we talk to legal experts for the prefecture, which we did, and they told us to go to the city office to get the official surveys of the road. Which we did. And they told us, looking very embarrassed, that they couldn’t give us the survey results for the fifty meters of road in front of our house because it hadn’t been done. The official kind of furtively showed us a map that clearly showed those fifty meters crosshatched in red—in other words, that section of road doesn’t officially exist—and said they’d run into some resistance when trying to survey, and basically, they didn’t know when next they’d get around to it.

“In the next couple of years?” I asked. “We can’t really say,” was his reply. “Ten? Fifty?” A few shrugs. “A hundred?”

“I don’t really want to give you a date,” he said.

And we laughed and left, and decided to just accept it. In the year or so following the days spent tracking down that reply, I’ve gotten used to the three point shuffle into the driveway, and dodging the bricks, and just chalk up what will be a daily occurance to quaint, rural assholeishness.

Though maybe someday I'll get around to showing these guys what building a real fort is all about.