Trip Home

I ventured "home" to Pennsylvania for the third time in a year recently to take part in spreading my Mother's ashes on the "estate" - farm property they have inhabited since the early 1980's. I've always considered it home, although I only got to live there for a five year stretch after it was first built. My Dad left home in the Upper Midwest with $50.00 in his pocket in the mid-1960's and eventually bought this place after two decades in the insurance business. Either he was pretty good at it, it was a great era for business, or both. I tried to move back to the area two or three times through the years, but my parents never were very supportive of such a move and it always ended in frustration. This particular visit, my Dad was in such a bad mood and was so nasty, that I don't think it bodes well for future visits, if I ever get invited again. So much for fantasies of getting some land in my old age. I think it may finally be the end of the line for my little country vacations. Still I've always been fond of the farm, which my Dad intends to sell soon. Here are some pictures of a country place with great privacy:

My favorite kind of neighbors....none!

"back forty"

Lower Entrance

View from guest-room window

Mom's kitchen for almost three decades

Guest-room balcony facing the pool

View of the pool from the guest room balcony

Suburban Waste

Growing up in the suburbs it seems like many of us didn't gain any marketable skills, unlike our country and city counterparts. City kids tend to become street smart, and are good at networking, negotiating and people skills. Country kids become good with their hands, and can rebuild engines, shoot and skin-out game and live off the land. Suburban kids got good it seems, at going to parties and recreational drug use, at least in my experience, hanging out at the mall and shopping, and surfing the internet, all of which translated eventually into long-term unemployment, well into adulthood unfortunately.

The only thing I learned growing up in the suburbs was that my Dad made money and my Mom spent money. If I made the mistake of asking any questions, my Dad would just just give me a solid backhand and my Mom would take me to the mall, just to get me out of the house, so Dad wouldn't kill both of us. So the mall became a haven of sorts, an escape.


I found myself living in Tennessee for some reason, in 2008. I had started a business outside Nashville, despite knowing nobody and having no local connections. It's not the first time I have just shown up somewhere. I did the same thing in 'Vegas about ten years earlier, and it turned out to be one of the most amazing years of my life, although I starved. I thought it would be interesting, to be near "Music City" this time. Plus it seemed business-friendly. I've had no roots since my parents had moved out of my only real home town of Valley Forge, PA when I was away at college in the 1980's. As a result I have yet to find a place to live I'm comfortable with, and I never did "settle down."

Well I couldn't seem to get my little business going enough to pay my little mortgage, so I had to move back to Florida after a year, where there was way more work for me. Then, I had two housing payments every month,for a while, until I could sell the one. Every time I have followed other people's business advice instead of my own infallible gut instincts, from college in the 80's to this real estate fiasco, it has set me back years, if not decades, financially. It's time to stop listening to the advice of idiots.

-Just in time for the decline-

While I was in Tennessee, where I fit like a square peg in a round hole, I met this old man who lives down the road a ways, out in the country. He'd been kind of lost because his wife made him get rid of all his farm animals after he injured his knees, or maybe it's just degeneration from old age-I'm not quite sure.

He was lamenting his "good ole days" in his "junk shop", where he could do welding, drilling, wood working, cutting steel, bodywork on trucks, and just about anything else it takes to live the country life:

True 'Bama Fans

Log-Rolling Tool

Drill Press for drilling through steel plate

Cross-Cut saw for wood work

Heavy-duty vise

Space heater, for winter projects

Heavy-duty jack

Walter shows how to shape steel implements

Anvil for shaping horse shoes

Circular saw for wood

Old truck springs

Walter and Daughter

Anyway, it is amazing, how handy this guy was, and I felt like suburban life had let me down.