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and just smiled. We had the permits, we had given the requisite notices, and we were building in accordance with the approved plans. We con- cluded that we had already won and that there was exactly no sense in keeping the issue alive. We also knew that the best way to end publicity is to say nothing. So we sat on our hands and kept our lips sealed. I believe that that was not what Don Luke, the great litigator, was praying for.
And we did get some ultimate satisfaction out of the controversy. When the extension was completed, we felt that it was beautiful and we were more than happy with it. So, too, it appears, were a number of neighbors who had signed the Lukes’ petition. They actually acted very graciously, complimented the house, and apologized. The paper did its own version of an apology: it printed a flattering picture of the com- pleted construction (not on the front page, of course) and alluded to the controversy in the cutline, as if to concede that it had been wrong.
As for Don and Ann Luke, they actually had their own victory (well, sort of): the woman to whom we sold in 2003 removed all of the offend- ing gravel. However, at what I believe to have been great expense, she replaced the gravel with Belgian block. The result was a more substan- tial and, in a European way, handsome courtyard. More important, the result was also the replacement of a rain-absorbing surface with a sur- face the effect of which was to repel water, raise the water table, and cause repeated flooding, all the way across the street, in the Lukes’ basement!
Having weathered the controversy, we took a breath, and a few years later worked again with Keith. This time we put in a beautiful pool and loggia, thereby creating even more of a kid magnet than we had with the huge television and sound system that we were enabled to install because of the Monstrosity.
All the Fitness News to Print
[Note to loyal readers: You’ve stayed with me so far, so I feel that it is only fair of me to advise you that if you wish to scan, or even skip, the section that follows (not that you haven’t already done that on numerous occasions), you
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