The Wise Man

A couple years back, when I was still attending church services other than when someone got married or died, I often heard the phrase, "The wise man built his house on a rock."

I always wondered how he got his house to stay on the rock during a strong wind.
I mean, really - one good Minnesota blizzard and the house is no longer on the rock...it's in a broken heap at the base of the rock, and covered in several feet of snow!

I digress.

It seems to me that the story also told of two other men who chose to build their houses in less favorable locations, and that their houses were ruined by natural forces due to this. (Or was it that the Big Bad Wolf huffed and puffed and blew them down? I may be confusing the two stories. I should maybe see if they've done any remodeling at church.)

Anyway, I've made this observation -

I figure that the man who built and owned my house prior to me must have been a wise man, indeed, for my house is not only on a rock - it's protected from the wind on three sides by the rock formation in which it rests, and from flooding for the same reason. The town itself has been hit by a tornado and several floods since I was in college and each time the house escaped damage. I've only been here for a couple of years, and last summer the town was hit by strong winds that toppled MANY large, well established trees. The worst thing at my place was the trampoline got repositioned - with no damage done to it.

On top of that, the house-inspector-guy that came and looked over the house prior to my purchase of it said that houses built in the '60s (as mine was, being around 10 years longer than I have) were built much better than those in the following 2 decades.

So I thank the "feller" who owned the place - for both the wisdom on the location, and the detail in construction.

The house sat empty for several years after his passing. (In case you're wondering...No. He didn't die in the house. This according to a neighbor at the only other house with an address on my little dead end street. I asked him before I bought the house because I didn't want some local kid asking my kids if they were creeped out by living in a house that someone died in.) The house was "fixed up" by his kids for the sale. I noticed where his kids cut corners on the fixing, and it's unfortunate that they didn't share their old man's homeowner skills, or pride, or whatever it is that would cause them to put the trim to the kitchen above the boards in the attic to the garage BEFORE insulating it.

Dumb.

But I gotta admit, these cheap hollow core doors to the bedrooms are going to be fun. The laminate is chipping off the bottoms of them and the kids have already put several cracks and holes in each other's doors. I'm patiently waiting for the day when one of them gets mad and locks ME out so I can bust through and say, "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!" like Jack does in The Shining.

And then I'll replace the doors with something nice and solid.