Walls or fences have always fascinated me. Possibly because I have wondered so many times why they were built in the first place. Are they built to keep something in or to keep something or someone out? Why do we build walls or fences? Is it because we can't get along with each other?

My father had a very interesting experience with cemetery walls. I grew up in a farming community where fences were very important to keep cattle in. That importance carried over to the cemetery where each little family plot had a small six inch high and some three-inch-wide concrete border around the family plot. Between each little wall there was about a four-inch vacant spot where weeds grew and multiplied. Can you imagine in a perpetual care cemetery what extra work that meant for the caretaker! Extra work meant extra expense.

My father- who was a very practical man - he believed it would be more logical to join one concrete barrier to the next...which of course is what he did. This did not go over very well with the next-door plot which belonged to his sister's family. He had to send someone in to cut through the concrete wall and remedy the situation to avoid a family feud. After many years the local Cemetery Association board just last year voted that in order to save money on maintenance that the wall from one family plot should be joined to the next family plot. How practical can you get?

Some day - when you have time - look up the most famous walls that exist in the world. Of course, the best known and the longest is the Great Wall of China. My daughter who visited China must have also been infatuated with walls. Even though it was against the law she managed to sleep on the Great Wall of China. I am sure that today the Great Wall of China is patrolled more diligently than when she slept on the wall when she was in her mid to late twenties.

One of the more famous walls is the chewing gum wall in Seattle, Washington. Can you imagine all these globs of chewing gum stuck on a wall. According to the description of the wall there are so many clumps of chewing gum that the wall emits a sugary smell.

Another famous wall was the Berlin Wall which, at one time, separated many families. In my many trips I never saw the Berlin Wall. But I did see one of the fences in Germany with lookout towers with guards watching the fence. It was scary to realize you were being watched.

Another wall that really disturbs me is the wall in Israel. Anytime I have had a bus group who visited Christ's birthplace, our bus has been stopped but all we needed to say was “Americans,” which was pretty obvious anyway as Americans stand out like sore thumbs. Then we were waved on through.

Today, walls are sometimes built as memorials such as the Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. Our local Border Wall does not even make the list even though it does draw many politicians to visit the Valley for our “border problem.”