Walls are wonderful things.  I have no idea when the first one was made, but it was likely well before recorded history.  Nonetheless, they do serve a number of really neat purposes.

They do provide protection, in many ways.  They protect us from the weather, ravenous wild animals, from humans that mean us harm and, of course, to some degree unwelcome relatives.

They also provide us with some degree of privacy.  They allow us to live four feet from our neighbor and still keep him or her from seeing or hearing us.  Then again, maybe you live in a condo or apartment.  The walls still provide some privacy, just not as much.

Walls have been built to keep invaders away.  The most famous of such walls, of course, is The Great Wall of China.  Some walls are better for this purpose than others.  The Berlin Wall, while not completely effective, did keep most East Berliners on the east side of the wall.  I guess it kept most West Berliners west of the wall, but that was not its primary purpose.  It is not as if the West Berliners were apt to attack those on the east.

To be sure, there are other walls built to keep people inside.  Prisons are the primary ones.  On the other hand, Israel built a wall that is very effective at keeping people out.

I guess I am going astray of my main subject, doors and windows.  I guess after they invented walls, it wasn’t long before men came up with doors and windows.  Naturally, they have undergone a few changes over the years.  Let’s face it, in all his glory, Solomon had windows, but they didn’t have glass.  I guess I could be wrong about that.  I wasn’t around to see them, but I don’t think glass really arrived on the scene until much later.  It meant, if he wanted to keep the cold out, he had to close the windows, likely made from wood.  On the other hand, the best he could do when it got to hot was to have a couple of slaves wave palm branches at him.  (It was the latest in air conditioning in the day.)

By the way, the pharaohs were not any better off and they considered themselves to be gods.  Yet with all their power, they could not cause the temperature to go down one degree.  The pharaohs, of course, had their walls and they were a little odd.  We can still see some of them near the Nile.  In spite of all their efforts to keep the grave robbers out, they still got into those pyramids.  I don’t think it really matters to them.  They don’t know it, so let’s not tell them.  It won’t hurt anyone to let them believe it worked.

By the way, getting back to doors and windows, the pyramids didn’t have any.  They were the ultimate in designed security, at least for the day.

The miraculous thing about modern day windows is that they allow us to see through walls.  Incredible as that might sound, it is true.  If you are inside a wall, you can see outside.  If you are outside, you can see in, provided the drapes aren’t closed.

Now doors, they are even more incredible.  They actually give us humans the ability to walk through walls.  Incredible as it might seem, they even allow us to carry objects with us as we go through.  Moreover, if we close and lock them, we are almost as secure as we would be if it were just a wall.  That’s right; they keep wild animals out.  Most of the time, they keep robbers out.

In a way, they accomplish the same thing a gate does with the big walls.  As I am sure you know, during the middle ages, they built large walls and gates to keep marauders out.  To some degree, they were effective, but no gate or wall can truly be said to be impenetrable.  Yet they still put a lot of effort into building the walls and gates.  They figured that there was no sense making it easy for the marauders.

Now it would seem, the experts tell us that a wall on the south border will not do any good.  They call me prejudice for even suggesting a wall.  Guess what.  The idea of a wall is not new.  They do work.  It has been proven for thousands of years.  Now suddenly, they stop working?  Maybe they have catapults or cannons and their friends shoot them over the wall.

Personally, I don’t think their knowledge is built on experience or common sense.  Instead, it has been influenced by bribes, AKA known as money and favors from lobbyists.  Take the bribes and our representatives just might be able to start thinking straight.

By the way, if we do want anyone to come north of the border, the wall would have a gate.  If they have the proper ID, if they are not carrying illegal drugs, if they are not criminals, then we can let them in.  On the other hand, if they disobey our laws, we can send them south with the warning that we don’t want them back.

Some would like to make it all sound complicated.  It isn’t.  If we want the bad guys to stay south of the border, we need to make sure that we don’t make it easy for them to enter.  Moreover, we need to do everything possible to discourage them from coming in the first place.  A wall goes a long ways in that direction.  It is sort of the reason our homes have walls.  They are not perfect, but they do provide some level of security.

Maybe Congress doesn’t want a wall, but we do.  It is time for them to ignore the bribes and start listening to us.  On the other hand, maybe it is time to send them all home and send some people in there that will actually pay attention to the constituency.  Just maybe they will not lose their memory before they take the oath of office.  Then too, we need to make sure that they are never allowed to use the word comprehensive.  The word must be removed from their vocabulary.