The dramas of daily life are often substance for true anthropological inquiry because they present us with examples of social conflict and its resolution, thereby illuminating perennial questions faced by members of a society. What can a dispute between two neighbors in a not-so-remote village of Cape Cod tell us that might be of interest to students of dispute resolution, resource use, and even political economy? The dispute examined here appears to have far-reaching implications not only because of the disputants themselves, representatives of two classes of American citizenry; but also because their conflict and the process used to achieve resolution address important environmental and ecological dilemmas faced by Americans today