A different sort of gate

There are as many ways to latch a gate as there are people who attempt to latch gates in this world. And believe me, my friend, I have seen them all over the years. However, to simplify this scholarly examination, I consider today only the basic archetypes of the double-gate closer. (These gates are secured using a chain and a carabiner clip.) I reserve the right to review other exciting methods of gate closing in the future.

The anarchist: “Gates? We don’t need no stinkin’ gates!” This is the bold approach. It nullifies all boundaries. Fences and gates are fascistic. Leave them open, don’t recognize the tyranny behind their existence, and strike a blow against the Man! This is a method that proudly proclaims, “We are all free, including this flock of sheep, that sounder of hogs, and especially that bull (didn’t you read about Ferdinand?).”

The “loose, as if they don’t care” adherent: If ignoring the gates altogether is the preserve of the anarchist, this method is that of the eternal adolescent, who lacks the confidence to take the final step of giving the finger to authority. Take one two-foot length of chain, and hook the carabiner to the last chain link. Then loop the flopping chain around both gates, connecting the clip to the absolute other end of the chain. This gives you the best of both worlds: a set of gates that are both technically closed and still wide open. With a large gap between the two, you have struck a blow for the right to be indecisive. Congrats on your courage.

The Continental soldier: This is an artful, poetic attempt to get it right, beautiful in its simplicity. Take one length of chain, positioning the carabiner just off-center. Wrap the chain around the two gates so that an equal portion of chain hangs down on either side, then connect the clip. When you’re finished, you can tie the two portions in a knot or toss them over your shoulder and, as you walk away, sing the soldier’s ditty that asks the eternal question, “Do your [chains] hang low?”

The Chinese puzzle: Do not attempt to get inside the mind of this gate fastener — you may never get out. This person’s world is a funhouse mirror of complexities, where distorting reality and reshaping it into something needlessly complicated is all in a day’s entertainment. Take a length of chain, wrap it around the gates, and connect. Then spend the next 15 minutes looping all of the chain in and around itself until nothing but a labyrinthine knot of metal remains. A bonus: When the knotter can’t even figure out how he fastened the gates, or perhaps arrived on this farm, or even the planet.

The fascist or the communist: This is a straightforward approach that does not tolerate resistance. Grab the chain and shove the two gates together tightly. It is important that you don’t let them express any individuality. Be firm, crush their metallic spirits. They should know, by your action, that they are now one interlocking entity in service to the farm, forever. Wrap that chain so tightly that once bonded, it will allow no deviation of movement, then secure the carabiner so that the gates will never be free again.

The Mr. Boring does it right: Take the damn chain, wrap it around once, and clip the carabiner to two links. Leave enough slack in the chain that the joined gates have a slight give, the clip can be released easily, and no animals can escape. No theatrics but very effective.

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Reading this weekend: Three Years’ War (C. DeWet), an autobiography of the Boer guerrilla fighter. And more Epistles of Horace (translated by D. Ferry). I particularly have enjoyed the one in which he consoles himself on his status in life, “… in my person and place in life somewhere behind those who are first, somewhere ahead of the last.”

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