LOVE YOUR ENEMIES - It'll Drive 'Em Crazy

Sometimes it's better to turn foes into friends-or, at least, to neutralize them

- J. P. McEvoy

DECEMBER 1957

Well, maybe it won't drive 'em crazy, but it'll certainly discombobulate 'em. Anyway, you can waste a lot of energy being nasty to your enemies. A wise man said it years ago: “If y f you attend to your work and let your enemy alone, someone else will come along some day and fix him for you."

But suppose your enemy won't let you alone? What then? You can do what the man did who was walking the bounds of his new farm and met his neighbour. "Don't look now," said the neighbour, “but when you bought this piece of ground, you also bought a lawsuit with me. Your fence is three metres over on my land."

Now this is the classic opening for a feud that could go on for centuries and make generations of enemies. "Good fences make good neighbours," wrote poet Robert Frost, but more potent even than good fences are good boundary lines.

The new owner smiled: “I thought I'd find some friendly neighbour here, and I'm going to. And you're going to help me. Move the fence where you want it, and send me the bill. You'll be satisfied and I'll be happy!

The story goes that the fence was never moved, and the potential enemy was never the same. He went around talking to himself. He was in shock; after that he was a slightly mystified but friendly neighbour.