Last weekend, at the house on Candlewood Lake, the next door neighbor went into a rage when he thought that Maury was watching his college-age daughters with binoculars. Maury had been watching successful and unsuccessful boat docking for hints for us, beginners, struggling to safely land our boat. Perhaps the neighbor’s daughters had suffered through bad experiences and he, as the father, was trying to protect them from what he saw as potential danger.

When I walked out on the deck and attempted to diffuse the angry words coming from the neighbor, he threatened to call the police and to get a restraining order against Maury.  His last words, to me, were that he knew all about my husband… I was stunned that he mistook Maury for my ex-husband. I felt beaten up. Would the nightmare of my past never leave?

Then, I realized I had been lucky never to have this happen before. No one in my town ever treated me this way. It took the insecurities and misjudgments of a stranger, who obviously had Googled me, to shatter happiness on my birthday weekend. But I recovered, and went on, as I gazed at the beautiful lake and the great blue heron that flew by.