The back fence was where the yards met. Wooden slats or chain link or sometimes just a wire with a piece of clothesline tied to it. The back fence was the border that nobody enforced. You leaned over it and talked to your neighbor and your neighbor leaned over it and talked to you and the conversation happened on the line between two lives. The back fence was the original social network. Two people and a piece of wood.

The back fence had a gate. A small gate with a hook latch that you could open from either side. You unhooked the gate and walked through and you were in somebody else's yard. That simple. No buzzer. No intercom. No app. You walked through the gate because you knew your neighbor and your neighbor knew you and the gate was the proof. The gate that opens from both sides is the definition of trust.

Gossip traveled the back fence. Mrs. Alvarez told Mrs. Chen who told Mrs. O'Brien who told my mother. The back fence was the wire service of the neighborhood. Every piece of news traveled the fences from yard to yard like electricity through a grid. You did not need a newspaper. You needed a neighbor who leaned on a fence. The back fence was faster than the evening news and more accurate because the source lived next door.

My mother hung laundry and talked across the fence and the talking was the point. The laundry was the excuse. Nobody goes to the back yard just to hang sheets. You go to the back yard to hang sheets and find out what happened on the block while you were inside. The back fence turned chores into community. The washing machine turned community into efficiency. The back fence understood that some things work better when they take longer.

They replaced the back fence with a privacy fence. Six feet tall. Solid boards. You cannot see through it and you cannot lean over it and you cannot talk to your neighbor unless you raise your voice. The privacy fence is a wall disguised as a fence. The old fence said here is where your yard ends and mine begins but we can talk about it. The privacy fence says here is where we stop knowing each other. The fence got taller and the neighborhood got quieter and nobody asked whether quiet was the same as better.

See also: Front Gate, Clothesline