They Forgot to Invite Me to Christmas—So I Bought a Mountain. When They Came to Take It, the Deputy Was Already Waiting.

permission. It was a proclamation. My deck—the one I’d sanded and wired and paid for with six months of sixty-hour weeks and three years of careful saving—had just been declared a colonial territory of the Julian Republic.

My father chimed in next with his characteristic dry corporate tone: “Generally prudent to consult family before making purchases continue reading …