I experienced the “Great Divide” this week (see Deb Galbraith, Bethlehem Press, Oct. 30). I usually meet my across-the-wall neighbor every other Wednesday, trash collection day, walking our trash cans back from the street. This Wednesday he told me that the trash truck bypassed our street earlier, and he found the truck on another street and berated the driver, who said he would return. As punctuation to his story, “Fxxxxxg Mexican,” my neighbor said. The Robert Frost “Mending Wall” poem came immediately to mind. I saw him “like an old-stone savage armed, moving in darkness.” And I felt myself thinking, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Edward J. Gallagher