Just Go Away

We made a day trip yesterday back home to spend the day in country. An old friend of mine from back home called earlier in the week and invited us to go do a little skeet shooting down at the local gun club while we were in town… so we met up with them mid-morning yesterday at the club. There were six of us in total… the sixth guy being some friend of our friends’ family and yet he looked really familiar to me… I just brushed it off as his being someone from around the county that I had seen along the way… so we proceeded to the woods and started shooting. As it turns out, this mysterious friend of theirs turns out to be very quiet and not too “into” the whole shotgun shooting of clay targets… the lingering thought of how I knew this guy from the past kept nagging me the entire time we shot the course. None of us shot too well in the end, but a good time was had by all. We made our way back up the main parking lot and proceeded to pack up our guns, etc. The man of mystery comes over to me and extends his hand to shake mine while thanking me for a fun time… I voice again how much I think I recognize him… I then tell him where I grew up just outside of town… yadda yadda yadda… and then he finally offers… that he works for the development company that bought some land off of Hwy 354… and then it dawns on me! This guy works for the developer out of south Atlanta that bought the 170+ acres just up the road from my grandmother’s home… they are selling it off into 1 acre lots for building new houses… right next to FDR State Park… the land deal that I made several trips back home to fight against… I stood up and fought first at the County Zoning Commission meeting and then again at the Town Council meeting… and this guy was there both times…. He is partnered with the enemy… the developer that I loathed… loathe… even now… to this very day. They took that beautiful wooded land and turned it into an urban-like subdivision in small lots… in an area where families have farmed there multi-acred land for years… 5 miles of highway occupied by 8-10 families and now a “community development” will be built next door… how sad is that???!! This man and I just stare at each other… now I know who he is and why I recognize him so much…the thoughts are flooding me: I stood up and told him and his partner that they were total pieces of crap twice in the past 2 years… I told them to go back where they came from… I told them they were trying to make money at the expense of others… Wow!… what can I say?… I know what…I hope he frickken’ remembers EVERY word of it because I still think the same thoughts and support every issue from back then. I wish they would all just go away… and leave little ol’ Pine Mountain alone to the locals…