Still the Smartest Money I Have Ever Spent

May 1 shall always be a date on the calendar that holds a special spot in my heart.  It was on May 1 in 2015 that the Missus and I closed on our little piece of Paradise by the Sea in Lake Como.  As we prepare for our seventh summer at the beach, its purchase remains the smartest money I have ever spent in almost five-and-one-half decades of engaging in such behavior.  

Our house was a diamond-in-the-rough.  Had it not been, we likely would not have been able to afford it.  The closing took place on a Friday afternoon.  The next morning, we woke up before sunrise and drove from Middlesex to Lake Como to commence the process of polishing our little diamond.  Ten minutes into our first designated task, which was pulling up the wall-to-wall carpet from the living room, Margaret mistook her finger for the carpet and gashed herself severely with her knife.  Not anticipating that we would create a medical emergency on our first day of beach house home ownership, we had no first aid kit or medical supplies with us.  She rinsed it out in the kitchen sink and we then applied paper towel, which we secured to her hand using duct tape, to stop (slow) the bleeding, and she went back to work right next to me, pulling up carpet.  

We have made a lot of great memories in our little beach house.  Thanks to proper planning and Margaret's eye for doing things, our former diamond-in-the-rough is rough no more and thanks to what appears to be an exploding market at the shore, were I inclined this morning to drop a "For Sale" sign on my front lawn, it would fetch a significantly higher price than what we paid for it.  While there may be a morning when that happens (and if it does it will simply be because we need a bigger house), this morning is not that morning.  

This morning is simply a morning to reflect upon and to appreciate this place that has helped me immeasurably in my life-long pursuit of peace.  

When we bought the house, our front lawn was a postage-stamp-sized piece of grass.  On our very first weekend as home owners, we observed that the grass needed to be cut.  As I was exploring the garage - and the little room next to it, I came upon a timeless classic.  The previous owners had left an old, somewhat beat-up and worn-down lawn mower similar to the one Clint Eastwood used in Gran Torino.  I wheeled it out of the garage, dusted off the cobwebs, and rolled it down the driveway to the front of the house where I proudly used my "zero carbon footprint" mower to cut my patch of grass.  

Lake Como - May 2015

I still have the hat, t-shirt, shorts and (probably) the flip-flops I am wearing in this photograph.  I still have old Gran Torino too.  The only thing seen in this picture that is no longer around is the patch of grass.  White stone now occupies that space.   

-AK