Change is like a lot of English words in that it can have more than one meaning. One of the best goes back to when you were a kid, and you had a pocketful of change in your pants or purse. You could have been headed to an ice cream store, or perhaps to buy a comic book or even to purchase a slew of penny candy (at least when I was a kid, but today not so much). The thing was that you felt that you were on top of the world, and all it took was some coins jingling in your pocket. Today, change can be considered a nuisance especially if you have a bunch of pennies. Now you would need a large number of pennies to buy what was penny candy in my youth. Oh, boy, I still remember the choices. However, the world changes!
The world changes and you change with it – whether you want to or not. For example, once upon a time (at least it seems like it), the Blonde in the House and I along with our son were living in the first community where I was the city manager. I was making an astounding $8,000 a year. We had rented a house, but after a year the owner decided he wanted to sell. We couldn’t afford to buy it so we looked at other houses. We found a nice one for a staggering (to us) price of $12,500. We decided to go for it, somehow found a way to finance it and moved in. Well, we found out that we couldn’t afford it either. Luckily, I was offered a position in another community which paid $9,300 so we put the house up for sale. We put an ad in the local weekly. A couple got an early edition of the paper saw the ad and immediately came over.
They wanted to know what we wanted. I said $14,200, and noted that their eyes lit up. Sure enough they accepted, and we thought we were rich having made $1,700 in a year. However, we had changed because we remembered our year of struggling ownership, and we rented during our time in the new community. Our daughter was born during my tenure at the first municipality so that also changed our outlook on ownership as well. It wasn’t until we moved to the next community that we determined to buy again. Since prices had gone up, we ended up paying $24,000 for the house, but we managed with minimal difficulties as a homeowner this time. I do not recall what we sold the house for, but out of curiosity I recently checked on the house and found that its last sale was for $459,000. Apparently, it sometimes pays to stay through changes at the same location.
Those of you who lasted this far can now take heart as I do not intend to go through all the houses, we have owned in the various places we have lived. Even I would get bored and doze off. Heck, I could bore anyone by just commenting on the homes in which we have lived in The Villages. My parents moved a great deal when I was growing up, and we lived in all sorts of houses and apartments. I guess that moving is just in my genes. The Blonde has been willing to put up with this, and I think grew to enjoy it herself.
We have had a lot of changes. However, I still think the best change is what jingles in your pocket as you head to the corner store!
Columnist Barry Evans is a longtime resident of The Villages.
