It was the summer of 1971. I had just dragged my family all the way from Colorado to Dallas, Texas, for what turned out to be an eighteen-month stint. My wife, Else, and our three small daughters, had made the move reluctantly. You know, the career came first….

There we all were. In a foreign land*, feeling totally out of place. I don’t think I can describe properly just how different this part of the country felt to us back then. We had only recently been transferred from far away Canada to Colorado and now this….The South. Dallas. Southerners who talked funny. The heat.

One of the ways we coped living in this strange land turned out to be television. Knowing no one socially, and in an effort to escape, we all would gather around the TV at all hours of the day and watch one of the three stations available. And that’s where I made my first acquaintance with Miss Dolly.

“Miss Dolly”? you inquire? Yes, on a television program called The Porter Waggoner Show.

Porter Waggoner, a sort of “Yee-Haw” swaggering character, would be stomping onto the stage dressed in crazy, rhinestone studded outfits and matching boots. He then would introduce the “little lady”, Miss Dolly, and ask her to sing one of her purty songs. Dolly, just then coming on to her own, would just smile and play along.

I have always marveled at how Dolly Parton was able to escape and yet embrace that countryfied environment to become the superstar she turned into. While almost all the female country singers of that era remained anchored to their back woodsy ways, Dolly somehow was able to hit the big time, becoming a major crossover personality and yet holding on to her, and monetize (!) and celebrate, her very humble past.

What a career and what a human being! Although making millions with her popular songs, she never forgot where she came from and would generously share her bounty. In this, to the bone, divided land, she is admired by all.

*Greater Dallas Ft Worth has of course grown into a major metropolitan and sophisticated mega city that has shaken off it’s, to us at least, backward, countryfied ways. It has exploded from a mere 2M population when we arrived to over 8M today!

You know the mantra. Save like crazy for a down payment. Commit to a huge mortgage amount “you’ll grow into over time” and commute every day, I don’t know how many miles, to that out in suburbia new development. Spend your weekends and vacations painting, finishing your basement, tending to your lawn and, voila, you’ll be at least equity rich, in five or ten years. You’ll then sell your place to another generation of suckers (your kids!) when you retire…..

If the above sounds a little cynical, and of course it is, you must admit that it certainly contains at least a kernel of truth.

You know, I’m eighty-eight years old and I’ve seen and experienced real estate cycles before. Several times.

I’ve also personally experienced two long periods when owning a house was often considered “wasteful”.I recall residential real estate being totally flat from around 1960-68 where I lived at the time and again from 1980-90 and let’s not forget that for the past 15 years, single family home appreciation in many sections of our country (think rustbelt cities) has also been non existing.

My (younger)Real estate friends who read this will scoff. They’ll point out statistics proving me wrong. What those statistics always hide are improvements and additions made to the houses and, most importantly, financing concessions are ignored. An example being the widespread practice back until 1980 of people buying homes with no-qualifying assumable loans for which people often were willing to pay (much) more. During the eighties in Denver, houses without an assumable VA, FHA or seller carry loan often didn’t sell at all for instance thus skewing the overall statistics big time.

Believe me. I’ve got the scars to prove it.

That brings me of course to today. Interest rates have doubled(!) the past 3 years. The cost of repairs, taxes, and insurance have also risen significantly while beautiful apartment complexes (conceived back when times were flush) all over most sunbelt cities are sitting vacant begging for tenants while big time syndicators are losing their (and their investor’s!) collective shirts.

With all that inventory being (over) build, they’re also hiding the fact that rents have dropped significantly simply by giving people X number of months free rent when signing up for a new lease. Ergo, rents are “stable” and yet they still can’t fill up those beautiful places with swimming pools, workout gyms, fire pits, party rooms and other such enticements.

Imagine yourself, lazing beside the pool with your partner while your kid(s) wallow in the hot tub or swimming pool while you are looking up what the latest interest rates are the banks are paying you, now that you have that down payment money safely tucked away in an FDIC insured deposit. And instead of cutting that shitty lawn of yours, you’re now planning a nice party for friends in the fire pit.

Instead of groaning over that huge mortgage payment, you’re now banking the difference between your rent and that. Just think.

If you’re one of those folks fearing you’ll miss the boat and “will never be able to buy a house”, take it easy! There’ll be lots of time. Of course, if you absolutely want to be a homeowner now for other than financial reasons, and there are many! go for it, but please don’t bitch to me about the rising cost of living!

You, know, I was beginning to lose faith but today even my very smart and well-informed neighbor is predicting it. “Predicting what? Tom” you ask. Yes, they all are saying we’re going to have a “Super El- Nino year” “in our part of Colorado and it’s starting right now! The rains of course have already begun and the snow…. “Oh my. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet”.

I sure hope they’re right. Our forest is bone dry. Trees are dying. If I were a religious man, I’d be praying our well will not run dry. I’m glad I was finally able to get some, bareboned, mind you, insurance for our house.

Oh, life in the mountains!

Yes, she’s baack!

Ever since Else and I were married back in the Stone Age, we’ve had a cat. And why not? Doesn’t everybody? I guess not. I can still remember our first one: Poeskat was her name. A furry ball of hair who would bring “gifts” to us every morning in the form of dead mice she’d deposit under our bed. Yes, I know….

Because of our constant seasonal travel back and forth from Colorado to Arizona, bringing along a cat, together with Biscuit, our dog, is not always easy. Getting all your stuff into a passenger car along with a big dog, a cat, their food and a potentially smelly litterbox and other pet paraphernalia, becomes a challenge when driving about 750 miles, let me tell you. How about an overnight at your friendly Holiday Inn Express, sneaking in a very unwilling animal? No, that part ain’t fun.

When we arrive in Arizona every year all is usually forgiven and forgotten however and we all settle down to a nice routine. Except last year. Yes, last year someone in our Arizona community complained anonymously to “Andy”, the park manager, (whom Else and I call Adolf, you know, after whatshisname,) that our cat, yes, our kiddy!, had been pooping in her yard and that, well, she’d need to be tied up inside, something we were unwilling and unable to do.

Crisis! Our daughter, Chris, to the rescue. A longtime friend, Robin, whom we all knew, was looking for a cat and, voila, problem solved, except we’d be without……

And now, lo and behold, after more than a year(!) of living far away from us, Robin is on vacation for six weeks and we have become cat sitters. As you can see by the picture, nothing has changed. That animal has picked up her life and habits after a year as if she owns the place and she and Biscuit are hanging out together again. She goes in and out as she pleases and, just like before, sleeps next to me on the bed.

“Our 20-year-old dishwasher is leaking water”, my wife told me. “It’s spilling water all over the floor. Can you please do something?” So, being a helpless male, unable to even pound a nail into the wall with a hammer, I started looking for someone to help. The internet to the rescue……..But of course!

After typing in dishwasher repair service near me I got in contact with an amazing “with it” voice on the other line of the local phone number that popped up. “Yes, of course we can help you” the pleasant woman said. “What’s your address”. Five seconds later, “is that off Shadow Mountain Road?’ “Yes,” I said. “Someone can be there tomorrow morning between 8: 00 and 9:00, will that work?” “Yes”, I said and with that I hung up.

As most readers are aware, I live fairly remote in the mountains about 20 miles west of Denver. Getting someone to come out is often a challenge and getting someone to just come out without being interrogated about what’s needed and such and how I was going to pay is often impossible. The fact that the lady on the phone seemed to know roughly where we lived was also reassuring although I had never heard of a local appliance repair place here in our community.

And so, sure enough, the next day, on a Sunday morning, no less, I received a text confirming I’m home and with that, a man showed up a half hour later in a little old something or other. “ You dishwasher?”, he asked. “Yes, follow me”, I said, and led him into the kitchen where my wife stood waiting. In no time at all he had diagnosed the problem and in broken English sort of explained he needed to get parts and that he would be back in “a day or so”. No contract. No money up front. No talk of price or anything. No nothing.

A few days later, after receiving another text to confirm we were home he showed up together with several parts he needed, fixed the appliance, whipped out his credit card machine, told me how much it cost (not cheap, mind you!) and that was it.

I became intrigued. Being an immigrant myself, I’m always interested in hard scrabble stories and although the man spoke almost no English at all I convinced him to sit down at my kitchen table and, well, answer a few personal questions. “Where did he live?” “Who was the lady who answered the original phone call and who seemed to be familiar with the area and spoke perfect English” “What country was he from?”

And so, I learned again, how smart, ambitious people can make a go of it here in America.

Roman Had been wounded and discharged from the Ukrainian army (He showed me the horrible scars on his back) in Eastern Ukraine a few years previously and somehow, through relatives had managed to come to America. It was all a little vague as I could hardly understand him. Of course, he didn’t live anywhere near us but some relative in California had produced a website and figured out how to appear local just about anywhere. They had also made a deal with an English-speaking neighbor to answer the phone. …. Roman himself lived in Englewood with his wife and two children almost 40 miles away from here and was actually in a hurry to visit another customer way on the other end of the metro area. Business was booming. Most people were honest he said and doing business in such a haphazard way seemed to work. You know, the old-fashioned way…..

Interstate 70 going West through Colorado surely is one of the most scenic highways in all of North America, “So why not make this a mini vacation and turn it into a little road trip?”, my wife, Else, said. And so, we had taken off.

We had lent the camper (pictured here below) to our oldest daughter and her husband for the season thinking that I probably couldn’t handle it this year (FYI: I do all the driving, Else cooks) because I needed to recover from my stroke and driving an RV to Vegas where summer temperatures normally are 105F or so is also something sane travelers avoid.

Ever since 1983, yes, that long ago (!), when we had bought our first RV, we’d travel in style, avoiding the hoi polloi along the interstate bathrooms for instance and certainly avoiding having to eat in greasy spoons or stay in crappy motels.

Since this was going to be an over 750 miles journey, we’d have to stay overnight somewhere, neither one of us willing to drive it all in one day. Doing almost all of my travels via air, I guess I assumed that restaurants along the interstate for instance these past 40 years had improved also as they had at most airports. Wrong!

What a crappy and shitty situation! Why do folks accept this? Is Denny’s nowadays the best we can do?

Oh, how I longed for waking up parked away from the highway somewhere on a quiet out of the way little spot (we seldom stayed in RV parks and considered ourselves early members of the boondock* society), a hot latte in hand!

Of course, RV travel has become so popular nowadays that even doing that, that is just parking anywhere, is now verboten in many places. (just spending a week parked at Fisherman’s wharf in San Francisco as we did back in the day, for instance is no longer possible and even Walmart is starting to object in some (popular tourist) towns.

* “Boondocking” for some of you unknowledgeable folks is parking your rig anywhere you feel like it. Most RVs are fully self-contained and don’t need to be hooked to city services available in RV parks. Last year however, testing the limits in a popular ski town, we got kicked out in the middle of the night by some asshole cop with nothing better to do than awaking us poor travelling retirees. The nerve!

And now, lo and behold, two, or is it three(?) generations later who is picking up the baton ??

Not wanting to play favorites, when his other grandson, Morris, reached that same age last month, he too, got to decide where in the entire world he would like to go for a visit. Of course, knowledgeable readers of this blog will guess immediately where that boy wanted to be taken to…., yes, you guessed it! To Conifer, Colorado, home of…. Biscuit.

“Biscuit?”, you inquire. Yes, Biscuit, our dog! Doesn’t everybody, when given the choice of an all expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world, choose visiting our house in Conifer, Colorado, home of Biscuit?

I know, a little extreme, right? But that’s how important animals are in the lives of many of us, yours truly included. (After all, as faithful readers will know, that’s how and why, when everything else is said and done, I too, came to these shores back in the day)

Here above is Morris, re-united with Biscuit (who he had met on a previous visit). Yes, all the way from Amsterdam to Colorado for a dog…..

Continued from last week……………….,

Else and I met at OAC, the Ontario Agricultural College, on December 7th, 1957. We hit it off almost immediately. Our common background, history and even the fact that our parents worked for the same company, probably had a lot to do with that. And, yes, after having pitched shit 24/7 on two different farms the previous 36 months, all during my teenage years when most kids my age were in school, I had miraculously become a more “normal” person.

Somehow, I had managed to spend two winters at that junior farmers College and somehow, I had been able to sort of keep up. After a summer spend as a door-to-door canvasser working for an aluminum window outfit, (which really helped me with my, up to then shaky English,) I had seen the light and found myself a job as a management trainee for a consumer finance company*. We married in 1960 and before we knew it Else and I became the proud parents of three lovely daughters.

I cannot explain in a few sentences how I turned myself into a successful mid-level finance company executive at such a young age, other than that I must have inherited my dad’s organizational abilities who counselled me frequently in long letters along the way. We were also extremely fortunate in that Else and I decided right from the get-go that she would keep the home fires burning, leaving me time to concentrate on my career. Within seven years I found myself in charge of about twenty loan offices spread throughout Ontario.

In 1967 the company I worked for, AVCO Financial services, embarked on a major expansion into the United States. They asked if I wanted to be part of that and viola. After receiving Else’s enthusiastic consent, the next thing I knew I was on my way in a private jet to the USA.

And so, as the saying goes, the rest is history. We settled in Colorado, but I remained with AVCO only six more years before moving on. On this 4th of July weekend, we celebrate the fact that the entire family became proud US citizens in 1974, now more than fifty years ago!

* Consumer finance companies were prevalent before computers and before credit card companies put them more or less out of business.

Else’s family settled in Canada in a small town 20 miles from Montreal in the beautiful Laurentians where KLM had established a way station. International flights were long in those days and flight crews needed rest. Henk was able to keep his job but would be gone often due to his long flight schedule. Although Else absolutely loved her time, from 1950-56 there, alas, it didn’t last. Henk lost his job. Air to ground communications was improved and old fashion morse code was no longer needed.

It so happened that further South, in Southern Ontario, in and around Toronto, I don’t know how many Dutch immigrants had settled the previous ten years. Henk decided that in order to feed his large family of a wife and four girls, pictured above, he would exploit this lonely, often homesick group and sell them expensive* “nostalgia” tickets back to the old country on KLM. It would require he move his family once again. They settled in the town of Kitchener, ON. Else hated it and as a result didn’t finish High school.

Not knowing what to do with her at that point they send her to attend a, fairly normal in those days, “Home economics” school associated with and on the same campus as the Ontario Agricultural College in nearby Guelph, ON. It’s here that Else and I met. The date was December 6th, 1957.

• Converted into todays dollars, a coach roundtrip ticket generally cost over $12,000! Henk would hustle most of his customers over to the local Bank of Montreal and “Fly now, Pay later” was born.

Although I don’t get that question very often anymore, every once in a while, the subject of course comes up. If I’m feeling cocky and after a few drinks talking to strangers at a party or wherever, I usually tell them that I emigrated to Canada in 1955 by myself at the age of seventeen and that I pitched shit on a dairy farm the first two years. It certainly sounds good!

The truth however is, as they say, more complicated.

You see, dear reader, I was a complete fuckup as a teenager who failed miserably in high school. Yes, I failed to pass the very first year of a private (Montessori)
College preparatory Highschool, twice.

I come from a long line of city people all of whom have called The Hague* home forever. My parents were also very modern, “with it”, ambitious and culturally enlightened people. Mom sang in a classical music choir, Dad, a Vice President for KLM Royal Dutch airlines, (yes, the same outfit Else’s dad worked for!) played flute in an orchestra and also served as the treasurer for the Dutch Humanist Society. Weekends would find them each reading a book in between the latest newspapers scattered about.

You can imagine perhaps that when their eldest son couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, apply himself in school, they must have been besides themselves. What to do?

The problem was I liked animals. (And still very much do) I had a dog, kept rabbits and was totally enamored with pigeons, a very popular hobby/sport back then (and still is in many parts of the world). Instead of studying I spend all my time on that. My parents, who never so much as had a cat, were beside themselves. They even send me to two occupational therapists to figure out what was wrong, who both, after several interviews with me, concluded “that boy wants to work with animals!”

And so, it was decided that Tom, age fifteen, couldn’t stay in school any longer but would instead need to go to work on a farm or something. I was totally on board. This was also during that same “emigration period’ I talked about last week. I started to dream of perhaps doing that also and start my own farm. Thousands of farmers and farm workers were doing it. So why not me?

I will be eternally grateful to my parents that they saw that something radical needed to happen. Dad found me a job on a faraway dairy farm which lo and behold I loved! There, for eighteen months on end, I milked cows, seven days a week, pitched shit at all hours and dreamed of owning my own farm. To my dad’s credit again, he then said in effect; “What now, Tom?'“. If you really want to be a farmer, why stay here in Holland? Many of them are leaving. The future doesn’t really look that great here and how in heavens name are you going to get the money to do that anyway?”

When in October 1954, Dad needed to go to Montreal and New York for KLM business he took me along and through KLM contacts we found a farm couple near Toronto who agreed to hire me the following Spring at $50.00 a month plus room and board. A few months later, on March 5th, 1955, to be precise, I crossed the Atlantic again, this time accompanied by my worrying mother, and began my job.

And that’s how I became a landed immigrant. I had just turned seventeen.

I am also forever grateful to the husband-and-wife team (Merlyn and Evelyn Dyment of RR#1 Middleport, ON) who hired me back then. I worked on their farm for eighteen months pitching shit and milking cows seven days a week, sixteen hours a day. They put me up and, most importantly, taught me English. To be continued….

• Although more famous, Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands, The government however makes nearby The Hague it’s home. Don’t ask.

In 1945 The Netherlands (or Holland as most of us natives call it* was a poverty stricken, devastated small nation the result of five years of German occupation and a ten year depression which had preceded it. When folks who have visited Holland lately and seen how nice and prosperous it currently is ask why in heavens name one would leave and come all the way to North America, it’s necessary to explain a few things.

When the fighting had stopped and the Germans were gone they left behind a disillusioned and demoralized nation. The infrastructure was in tatters and folks had lost faith in the future. The well fed Canadians who liberated our country (yes it was the Canadian army that liberated most of Holland, the US army only came through a very small sliver in the South) talked about all the wonders of their nation, and of course seduced many a willing young Dutch girl,….folks began to wonder…

Why remain in this country? Why not emigrate? What future is there?. Tiny Holland had also, or so was the thinking at the time, way too many people. Why not go where there’s more room? The government even started to pay folks to get out and in fact strongly encouraged farmers and such to take the big step. Most food was rationed. It was impossible for young people to find a home of their own forcing many to postpone marriage or live at home in very cramped circumstances. The future looked bleak indeed.

And so the idea of emigration took hold. A government survey at the time indicated that well over one in ten citizens at least “thought” of taking the big step and in the end around 500,000 folks between 1946 and 1959 actually did. (Out of a population of only 10,000,000.

One of those people with emigration plans was Henk Prins, father of Else. Henk, a marconist, ( i.e a radio operator, an important necessary function back then before modern air to ground communication), with KLM, the Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij ,Royal Dutch Airlines (world’s oldest airline having been around since 1917). Prior to joining KLM Henk had served in a similar capacity since 1921 on Dutch seafaring ships and had therefor been all over the world, entertaining me in later years with many of his almost unbelievable stories.

When on June 20th, 1950 Henk heard the rumor that the Communists on the other side of the world had invaded Korea, he freaked out. The feared Russian Army that was stationed less than a hundred mile from the Dutch border as a result of them having chased the Germans back to their own country during the war, even had blockaded Berlin the previous year. What would happen if they, too, would suddenly decide to move Westwards? (for those of you who can’t fathom that, think about today’s Ukraine)

While on his way with the entire family in a rental car (they didn’t own one) to visit a family member, they drove past the airport to pick up his flight schedule, he heard the news. He immediately turned around and hastily packed a few suitcases, drove back to the airport and put Rijntje, my future mother in law, and his youngest daughter on a plane that afternoon! Direction: Montreal.( KLM had a very generous free flying policy for its cabin personnel. Also security as we know it today did not exist)

Two days later he, Else, who was eleven by this time, and two of her other sisters (there are four all together) hastily boarded another (twice weekly) flight to Montreal that stood ready for departure , the flight were Hank had been scheduled to work. Because they had no reservations of course but a major “in” with Henk on board at work, both of Else’s sisters had located the two remaining empty seats, leaving Else stranded and denied entry. It was at this point that Henk gave the captain a choice: “Either Else gets on or I won’t work”.

And thus Else can tell the story that she flew to Canada, (an 18 hour flight with 2 stops) in the bath room because that’s where they put her during take off and landing.

Henk and his family would live in Canada sort of illegally as “tourists” for almost 12 months before returning to Holland in1951. They subsequently applied for proper immigration status and re-entered Canada that year together with their belongings which they had in all their haste left behind.

• The Kingdom of The Netherlands is a small country in Western Europe consisting of thirteen provinces. North and South Holland being the dominant provinces. It currently has about a population of 18,000,000 . To the surprise of many an immigrant it has completely turned itself around the past seventy five years and has a booming economy. Instead of many people trying to leave, one of it’s problems now is managing the many immigrants trying to get in!

To start off on a proper note I hereby would like to pay tribute to my dear wife Else’s parents; Henk and Reintje Prins. They have been a great influence on my life. Pictured here below:

…This picture was taken sometime around 1932 or 1933. Almost one hundred years ago! They would be married in 1935. I will have plenty to say about what this picture signifies later….

During the following several installments I would like to tell the story of how Else and I met and how our common history led to our marriage in 1960 (!) and emigration from, first, The Netherlands to Canada, thence to the USA. How after all these years our youngest daughter, Chris became, along with her husband, Joe, an accomplished small airplane pilot and how two of our very own grand children are now flying around in airplanes and helicopters respectively in the wilds of Alaska and the mountains of Colorado. A one hundred year aviation history! Stay tuned…..

Long time readers have of course heard me before. You know, me, going on about him, Jeff, Jeff Bezos….. that is. I’ve snickered at his antics with Ms. Sanchez, now the lovely Mrs Bezos. I’ve laughed at his crazy, over the top yacht that he is now trying to unload because he’s finally been embarrassed enough by it’s outlandish size. And now of course I’m even more disgusted by his recently acquired habit of sucking up to our Dear Leader and the subsequent gutting of his newspaper, the venerable Washington post. It’s all been a bit much.

So, “who cares Tom”, you say. Well, let me tell you….I hate shopping. It’s the reason I often walk around with holes in my socks and underwear in tatters and It’s the reason I often don’t shave because my razor blades are gone and my dear wife forgets to get me new ones at the grocery store. This brings us of course to the obvious question you might have which is “Have you considered buying an electric shaver, Tom?”…..

Well, actually I have. Often. I even visited a Wallmart a while back but left without my razor, being intimidated by all the choices and not knowing what to do next.

And so we come to…. Amazon!

Of course I’ve heard about them. Of course I know what it is. I haven’t lived under a rock you know. I’m even a member and I’ve actually used them a time or two. But now, I’m actually realizing for the first time what a fabulous business and what a fabulous service that man is providing and then to realize that it was only thirty two years ago that nerdy Jeff talked his parents into investing their life savings into that crazy online bookstore of his that he had started in his basement in Seattle. (And almost lost in 1999!) Yeah, an internet store…To an old guy like me that’s yesterday. How things have changed in such a short period of time!

And so “of course,” I said. “Order a shaver on line!”

Tomorrow one of Jeff’s trucks will drive all the way up my almost half a mile driveway up in the mountains twenty miles from the edge of the city where I live and bring me that $50.00 razor I so desperately need.

What a service! Enjoy your billions, Jeff!

Arvada, CO

3 bed, 1.5 bath 1,960 sq/ft Home built in 1954(kind of tired) on a 9,148 sq/ft Lot, $415,000.

You hear it all the time…. “Everything is so expensive now, why has the cost of living increased so much? We’re having a tough time making it here. The price of real estate is outrageous.”

Before we go into all that, let me paint for you a picture of that so-called idyllic time back in the Sixties when Else and I first arrived in Colorado:

COW TOWN USA.

Because we had been transferred from Toronto, Canada, a booming city back then, to here in Denver by the company I worked for at the time, we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. We moved from an area and a house akin to working class Old Thornton to upscale Applewood on the West side of town and had money left over. What was not to like!

Although we immediately took to the West and the ever-sunny skies and mild winters, we also began to realize that good old Denver really was nothing more than an isolated hick town on the prairie far from anywhere. On certain days, it often reeked of cow manure downtown as one could still smell all those stockyards not too far away. The smell of money, they said.

The restaurant scene was an embarrassment. Holly West Mexican restaurant was as good as one could get in Jefferson County and I-70 was only finished to Kipling. If you wanted to go into the mountains old US 40 or US 6 were your only choices and if you wanted to go to recently created Lake Dillon, you had to go all the way over Loveland Pass as the Eisenhower tunnel was merely a gleam in the highway department folks’ eyes. Our kids learned to ski using a rope tow at Loveland Valley.

Wages, even for professional people like lawyers and such, were amazingly low. “You get paid in sunshine” they said. One of the largest employers at the time, The Martin company had just laid off I don’t know how many people and numerous houses on the West side of town stood empty.

There’ll be folks who say “get me back to them good old days!” Well, I say, have you considered moving? Statistics are in fact showing that more folks are leaving our fair area recently than are moving in. Maybe they’re on to something, I don’t know. Forty years ago, during the oil bust here that I (and my pocketbook!) can still remember vividly, people left in droves also and I sure do not remember that being such a wonderful time for my business.

Springdale, PA

3 bed, 2.5 bath 1,824 sq/ft Home built in 1949(updated) on a 9,583 sq/ft Lot, $239,000.

Last year we visited Pittsburg, PA, a busy, not insignificant large city. We were amazed at how beautiful the surroundings were and how cheap real estate was. We saw numerous houses for sale for no more or less half what they would cost here. They say that the demise or decline of the steel industry has decimated that town. Well… do you think that I’m the only one who can see an opportunity here?

The Rustbelt cities are coming back. Go East young man!

A recent article I read (I forget where, but it must have been in the New York Times because the writer sure sounded like an entitled whiner) argued basically that older folks if they wanted to stay in their house (before being shipped off to the home I suppose) should not let this family possession fall into disrepair and should do everything possible to keep it attractive to the next buyer who may not like their old avocado colored refrigerator, for instance. Shouldn’t grandmas’ perfectly serviceable old carpet be replaced and isn’t it time for a bathroom upgrade?

The writer explained that “vulture investors” specifically target older folks. “They try to buy the property on the cheap”, she explained, “thus depriving young people of what’s rightfully theirs”.

Talk about entitled! Why doesn’t she roll up her sleeves and upgrade that house herself after Mom and Dad have vacated, if indeed she is trying to get every last dime?

Before I retired from that business, my company used to finance ambitious “flippers” like those “vulture investors” who bought those homes because the kids almost never wanted to get their hands dirty.

I took this picture on May 6th. (Yes, living at 8500 feet elevation in Colorado is sometimes challenging!) We never left the house and below is what we saw only 48 hours later. All gone. As readers of this blog are aware, I’ve been sounding the alarm lately about our extreme drought, but why can’t we arrange this during the proper season? Can’t Trump do something about this? Yes, Rocky Mountain weather can be challenging and unpredictable, but this is a bit extreme, don’t you think? (Of course, we’re not even in June yet and what do we expect, right?)

Anyway, we’re glad for the moisture. Let’s hope this continues but then in the form of rain!

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal is getting me all excited again. What in hell are all those “billboard cowboys” about? There’s getting to be more and more of those unsightly ads all over town! Are those ambulance chasers really about helping folks fighting evil insurance companies and other scofflaws? Is calling one of those hired guns really going to get you “justice” after you’ve been “wronged” in a car or truck crash and is their 35% or so, cut, really worth it?

Well… according to the article not just no, but hell no! Most auto injury claims could be settled easily and fairly with no need for lawyers. To quote directly from the article again, most cases are evaluated by a claim -evaluation platform used by your insurance company and cases are generally settled by algorithm and negotiations are largely an illusion. “Strip away the rhetoric and a simple business model emerges. The lawyer buys an estimate for a few hundred dollars and resells it to his client for a few thousand in fees. In its current form, it makes for a commercially robust but ethically dubious business”.

Those of you who remember Saul Goodman from the wildly successful Netflix series, Breaking bad will get a kick out of the above billboard which of course is a parody of all those newly minted car crash entrepreneurs.

It’s true, of course that new automobiles cost much more than they used to but let’s consider and try to remember what cars were like back in the so-called good old days.

People complain that the only way to afford a new car now is to get a 60- or 84-month loan, forgetting that those vehicles last so much longer and are generally of much higher quality. Who can still remember the days when cars would fall apart after the last of 36 payments were made?

Yes, buying a brand-new car is expensive but so is buying a brand-new house and who can afford that? Most of those cars are built to last at least 10 or 20 years now so why not just buy a nice used automobile or keep and maintain the one you already have properly?

Just for fun I checked around a little and found the following: Here a small sample:

Right near me:

1. A 2010 Subaru with all the bells and whistles 187000 miles: $6,400.

2. A 2013 Lexus (!) with 106,000 miles for $13,000

3. A 2012 Chrysler Town & Country with 132,000 miles for $10,500

   Sure, maintaining and repairing those cars costs money, but have you considered how much the sales tax, license plates and insurance alone are for new vehicles?

Above: the author with his 2012 Honda CRV. It has 168,000 miles on it and is in perfect shape. According to blue book it’s worth only $6,800.00. I’ve never looked under the hood, (why would I?) and I always take it to the dealer who sold it to me where they service it for very little money actually. They’re constantly trying to “buy” my car of course and every time I visit the place an attractive young lady (how things have improved since the days of the sleazy, used car salesman!) makes sure to say hello.

Above is a map of how we travelled. Pardon the picture but this is the best my tech guy could do. It’s tough finding good help… especially on a pensioner’s budget.

Most folks who drive from the Phoenix Area to Denver basically take I-17 to 1-40 to I-25) A mostly boring but flat drive skirting the mountains and the high country. Although that way is around 100 miles longer, one usually missis all the “excitement” of snowstorms and high mountain passes and such this time of the year. We’ve also done that on occasion but certainly not this time. There is no snow!

We’ve lived here for more than half a century, and we’ve more or less seen it all but what’s going on right now is truly alarming. At our home, at 8500 feet elevation, most snow usually falls in March and April (hence the reason we stay late in Arizona) and unless, you really, really like wet snow-the kind that falls that time of the year- we’d just as soon brave the Arizona heat. The Colorado mountains to a significant degree provide the water supply for the cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix among others. All that water sort of flows from the Colorado river downstream and, after having been completely used up ends up in Mexico.

A political fight is already brewing on how to divide the little water that’s left. The terms of a century old agreement between the various States is being torn up and Washington is going to get involved. Although these “downstream” cities have already taken measures and have other sources of water, there’s going to be hell to pay!

Another, and even more pressing issue-at least for us mountain dwellers-, is fire hazard! "We’re already, more or less, resigned to losing our house when, I guess, not if, our bone-dry forest catches fire. “Saving” our home and then living on 10 charred acres as we’ve seen others do in similar situations is not what we plan to do. Should that happen I guess we’ll be moving to Arizona?