They broke into my property at dawn with bolt cutters, trying to steal a boat that belonged to my dead grandfather.
What they didn't know, I legally owned the entire lake they're standing on.
Picture this. Tuesday morning, 6:00 a.m. I'm watching through my kitchen window as Karen Brightwater, the HOA president who moved here 3 years ago, leads two board members and a sheriff's deputy toward my dock.
The morning mist clings to Lake Meridian like a shroud. And there's this bone-deep creak of 40-year-old dock planks as they approach my grandfather's 1985 cabin cruiser.
Karen's waving around a piece of paper like it's some kind of weapon. A notice demanding I remove my eyesore boat within 72 hours or face $500 daily fines. She's about to discover she just declared war on a Navy veteran who inherited more than just a boat.
My name is Marcus Wendell, 52 years old, retired Navy engineer, and apparently the biggest thorn in Karen Brightwater's side since she moved to our quiet Lake Meridian community 3 years ago with big-city dreams and an even bigger attitude. Let me paint you the picture of how this war started.
Lake Meridian sits 90 minutes west of Denver, a pristine 200-acre jewel surrounded by 47 homes that grew up around the original homesteads. My grandfather Clifford bought what the locals called worthless swampland back in 1982 for $8,000. About what Karen probably spends on her monthly Botox appointments.
Clifford was a carpenter who believed in doing things right the first time. He spent two summers hand-building our cabin and that dock using cedar planks that still smell like Christmas morning when the sun hits them just right.