[FASTLARRY]

I moved to Gwinnett county in Ne metro Atlanta 25 years ago to get away from people. I was out in the country surrounded by farms with cows and horses grazing. The country was dry and to have a drink I had to go to the local country club and take a bottle out of my locker and they served me a set up. There were no bars or pool halls. To get a hamburger I had to drive 15 miles south inside 285 into civilization. It was what I wanted, solitude and peace from the maddening hords of people I did business with in my travels to all the major cities of the usa and world. I come home to my little jungle with nothing going on.

Time changes and in the last decade this place has literally exploded and where only a few thousand lived around me, its now 1 million. Where it was 99% white, I am now the miniority as we have more imigrants than any other county. We are over ran by illegal mexicans here, quarter mil, up to a half mil live in this area. Koreans, Indians, you name it, we have them. The blacks found prosperty with jobs and moved from the inner city to the burbs as well. My area is now maybe 25% white.

A million people have to have places to live and that meant the total destruction of the woods and fields I so cherished. My little acre I live on was protected by a 200 year old cemetery and church behind me and my back yard was boardered by this climax forest of pine trees and 50 acres of woods. I retreated inside my compound slowly putting up an 8' fence covered by ivy. It is futile to try and move further out, they just catch up to you in 5 years and trash you all over.

As the land becomes more valuable, they finally bought the forest behind me and plowed it under and built cheap condos. My view is no longer woods, but into some bodys bedroom window. I am putting up a higher back fence and stringing more ivy.

As this destruction of the forest occured the wildlife had to move some where. The quail and turkeys had been gone for several years I used to see. The small herd of deer I used to feed was pushed out and the red necks shot them all. One buck has a great rack which was his death sentence. I mourned his passing for weeks. When I would come home late a night I would see him in the yard. I planted milo for him, corn and he would stand up on his hind legs and steal my pears from my tree.

I have most of my yard covered with ivy so a lot of small critters can hide in it. I feed over a hundred birds and hummers, a flock of doves, 9 squirrels and 6 chipmunks, I have tables they can get up on to feed and to make escapes to the trees. Jake and Max and Abbey are all getting old and no longer hunt or chase them. They are so stoved up they can barely walk now.

Jr, the Jack Russell is young and fast and my Bischon Frise Bubba is the greatest hunting dog I have ever seen. He corners something and he will stay on the hunt all night long, something my bake brain Jack Russell is susposed to do, but JR would rather come in the house and play with his tennis ball making you toss and as he runs after it.

As all this wildlife was displaced with no where to go, they came into my yard and many perished as my dogs have a doggie door and I can not prevent them from going out back and chashing things down.

2 sets of possoms came in, had pups, and I saw all of them die as I had to remove them one by one. Rats were driven in and I did not mourn their passing but that just gave the dogs more of a hunting instinct.

The dali lama teaches me to respect and cherish all life forums. If a bee or hornet gets inside, I do not kill it, I capture it and set it free. Yo Sarah rama lama ding dong, she has 6 names does not follow the holiness teachings and hates bugs but I have taught her when a spider gets in her bathroom not to smush it but to call me which she now does and I save him from her shoe and put him in a tree out side.

Yesterday I was walking down my drive and for years we have had a den of King snakes and eastern Idigo.
Once a year I would catch one of each out in the open, bring it in the house to chase yo sarah around with. She like most women, does not like snakes or bugs. I would turn them back loose and they would vanish into my thick ivy cover.

None of my dogs have ever been allowed to hang out in the front yard as they wander off into the street and so they have driven all the snakes out of the back into the front where they are protected.

JR now goes every where I do and will not run off or leave me. So when I do yard work in the front he is also close by. Yesterday he cornered a copperhead and was barking at it. In 25 years here I had never seen one before and I had to kill it to protect the dog who I could not get to back off. It was fat and healthy, a magnificent animal and its brown colors were beautiful. It was big. I used to capture snakes as a kid and keep them in cages.

I once had the largest copperhead on record. I took it to my boy scount meet in the upstairs of our church for every one to see and somebody later on opens the door and it got out. The priest had a cow, not only did I catch two rosarys for that offense, he swore me to secrecy saying, if it gets out the snake is loose in here, no one will come to mass. It was never seen again and I guess lived in the walls taking out rodents.

Having to kill anything now bothers me badly and killing something I admire bothers me more. I can't have it breeding in my yard when all the yards next to me have yard apes running around. How would I feel if I released it and a kid got bit later on.
Handling them can be very dangerous. There are just some things you have to kill like rats and snakes that can kill. C'est La vie, live and let die I guess.

They call this progress, I call is the rape of the environment and my habitat.

ORIGINAL LYRICS
© 1966-69 Siquomb Publishing Co. BMI

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel, a boutique,
And a swinging hot spot.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum.
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Hey, farmer, farmer, put away that D.D.T., now!
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees, please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Late last night I heard the screen door slam.
And a big yellow taxi took away my old man.
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got till it's gone?
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.