Once more, with feeling!

Once again, we are going to try to move the Kent Wells Sherman House to the property that we bought a year or so ago for which to move it. Last time we hit a glitch with AT&T, but I am assured that all i's have been dotted, t's crossed and we're good to go, so the new moving date is Saturday, September 21st, which is perfect, because I haven't anything going that day and can be there for the move. I do hope that we do not encounter any more delays, glitches or anything else that could potentially hold up this long anticipated move. I am very tired of waiting, and although I am told that this date is not yet graven in stone, I am also told that the moving contractor and the utility company are on board and committed to that date, so I am hopeful that we will FINALLY get the house to its intended location two weeks from today. Let's hope that this all comes to pass. It's been too long a wait and I am more than ready to get the show on the road and get this thing done once and for all. We've jumped through innumerable hoops, dealt with mind numbing bureaucracy and a lengthy and frivolous lawsuit to get to this point. I am in no mood to wait any longer. I want to see this house moved and restored. This project is already behind schedule by well over a year and has cost us far too much money as a result. We won't recoup our losses, far from it, but we can at least get this thing underway soon and start generating some long anticipated income from it. Let's hope that I can report success in two weeks time!

GONE TOO YOUNG

I heard about a terrible car accident Friday morning during rush hour on the freeway that I travel every single day to work. Reports said that the freeway had to be closed for several hours, so I knew that it must be really bad, but I was devastated to find out later that day that someone I knew was killed in that accident. A young man, a Republican politician and member of the local TEA Party, W. Roak Zeller, was the victim of an accident that claimed his life. He was only 42. His grandfather was my High School math teacher. Now, I am an avowed liberal Democrat, and as politically opposed to Roak as anyone out there, but what I sincerely appreciated about him was that he was always open and willing to listen to opposing viewpoints and was never disagreeable about it. Yes, he held on to his beliefs very passionately, but he was also a real gentleman and someone you could always count on to come up and shake your hand when he saw you and greet you by name. He was a young man in a hurry, and seemed very eager to eventually hold elective office. I have no doubt that, had he lived long enough to do so, he would eventually have succeeded in so doing. He ran for many different offices, ranging from State Representative to County Commissioner. He did not succeed in winning any of those elections, but he got his name out there and became a known quantity and I think that he was a young rising star in the party who could eventually have gone somewhere politically. He was kind, gentle and a good man all around despite our political differences and he managed to make a difference in his short life. He will be missed by many of us who knew him both as friend and acquaintance. I am quite devastated by the news of his having been killed in such a horrible accident and I plan on at least attending the calling hours to pay my respects.

WELCOME, NEIGHBOR!

A friend from college who I have known for at least 35 years is moving into the vacant apartment downstairs. She was in a bad housing situation and needed new lodgings, so when we ran into each other at a recent college reunion, I mentioned to her the fact that the previous tenant who helped me to land my upstairs apartment had moved out and that the downstairs unit was now vacant. She asked when she could come over and see it, so I showed it to her the next afternoon. She fell in love with it at first sight and agreed to move in immediately, so she is still very much in the process of moving and settling in. She showed me Friday afternoon what she has done with the place and I must say, it's really beautiful and tasteful. I love her sense of decor, even though she has had to mostly acquire "curb salvage" furniture since she is moving from a single room in a rooming house to a full fledged apartment and has very little furniture as a result. She's currently a graduate student working on a Master's Degree and plans to go forward with her Ph.D. when she completes that, so she will probably be living downstairs for quite a while. She's already done some re-landscaping of the place by ripping up the weed choked garden, tearing out the dead rhododendron bush and gutting all of the junk plants that were choking out everything else. She planted one lone Hosta plant, so I went out and bought more and planted us a pretty flower garden in front of our house. We plan to trellis a remaining rose bush and whack out one last junk plant and replace it with a trellised rose bush, either this fall or next spring. We plan to paint our porch, too. We want to spruce up the exterior appearance of the place to make it look a lot nicer. We called the city to cut down a dead tree in front of our house on the tree lawn, so that's also been done. It looks nicer all the time so I am pleased that this house now looks a bit nicer in front, and when my friend and I get done with it, it should look much nicer! Ah, how nice to have an old friend downstairs instead of a total stranger! Makes living here much more pleasant to have been able to choose my own tenant downstairs! It's kind of my way of paying it forward for the friend who helped me to score my place and at a very decent price, too. After all, you know what they say, what goes around, comes around. If someone does good for you, pay it forward and do good for someone else and hope that they pay it forward and do a good turn for someone else yet again. Imagine what a great world we'd live in if we all did this.