My house

Before I start calling my insurance company and the hospital of my bills, I thought I tell you about my house. In 2007 my step-mother, Joyce, went into the retirement community and gave my brother and I the two houses they owned in Davidson. My brother got the house my father built and I got the house that had been split into three apartments and had been rental property for about 30 years. Due to tax laws we could not accept the gifts but just moved in and let Joyce keep the titles.

I moved in after much painting and cleaning in the winter of 2007. The house is 76 years old and in the old part of Davidson about 3 blocks from were I attended the 1st grade and two blocks from where we lived when I was 5 until I was 7 years of age. Many of my neighbors I have know for decades. The lot on which the house reside is huge and runs from the street in front to the street behind. There are several large trees, oaks and cedars, which are probably older than the house itself. It is a very large two story structure on a hill maybe 20 feet higher than the main road in front. It reminds me of the grand old houses in the Forest Hill neighborhood in Danville, Va where I lived between the 2nd and 7th grades. We lived in a cinder block apartment building but I tended to cross the road and hang out in that neighborhood. I even raked leaves in that neighborhood and loved the stately brick houses there.

This house is so old that it seems to have a wind chill factor. It is very hard to keep warn, even with the natural gas heater. Get close to a window and you can feel the chill. So the neat comes on and gets too hot, then to cool. other than that, I've made a cozy little place for myself. I'm happy here.

It took me a while to get used to the noise from the two upstairs apartments, then I began to like it. Joel is moving out at the end of the month, the second person who has trouble with the other apartment renters cigarette smoke. Seems the HVAC systems are connected and there is no way to uncouple them. Having the two apartments rented covers the utilities, taxes, and insurance so the house is self-supporting.

I've been pacing out the options of using trees to support the new shortwave antenna(s) and grounding. My new problem will be how to get the coax into the house and into the right room, without having to crawl around under the house.