I was a city kid. My wife dragged me to the country side and I discovered the joys of seeing a billion, zillion stars every night. I had, of course, seen a pretty good display while camping as a young person, but it rained a lot, which is another story. This new nocturnal delight gave me a real chance to start to identify constellations and spot planets on a regular basis. I loved it!

About three months after my full conversion to starry nights, a new house was built within sight of our place. A fairly ugly house, but the worst part was that they installed eight of those security lights around the place and left them on all night, every night. I went onto my porch, and boom, urban glare ruined my view. I complained about this regularly, much to the amusement of my wife, who would then comment about my city girl upbringing and how quickly I had adapted.

Sometime later, we were working on a fence near the road. These folks wander up and ask if we live there. I might have said something like, “No, I randomly build fences in other people’s yards on Sunday mornings.” It may have been exactly that. I was hot and sweaty, and possibly crabby.

Anyway, my wife gave me the stink eye and I shut up. She bantered with them about assorted local nothingness until they asked how we liked it “out here.”

I may have said something like, “Fine until those morons moved in and they leave their lights on all night.” It may have been exactly that.

Uh oh. Hello morons, nice to meet you. They sort of mumbled about having to get going. My wife was mortified. (She has since sanded some of my rougher edges.) I may not have won Miss Congeniality, but they did turn off the darn lights.