Home....

One day, a few days ago while on facebook, I saw the above drawing. 
It made me think of days when I used to be away from home for weeks at a time.  No matter where I was in the world, the place I put my butt at night was "home" even if for a temporary time.....12 man tent, hotel room, Tab V utility room, ...all of which have been my "home" at one time or another over the years.

In all my years in the military, I never wanted for a place to lay my head...I might of had to work very hard before I could go lay my head in the place they told me was mine for a few days...

Sumter House

As best as I remember it, my first wife, Christopher and I moved into the house in Sumter 13 April 1988. The day the house closed, we went and pulled the for sale sign down out of the front yard.  Randi and I move out of the house 19 April 2010....  and the house sold 25 Sept 2012 to a very nice couple who I hope have many happy years in that house...and he can have every inch of that yard...I won't miss mowing that 1 acre yard at all!  Out of the 22 odd years I lived in that house, I spent about 2 years overseas, laying my head in some other bed, leaving my family behind to deal with life by themselves.  Those things always made me sad.

I can't tell you how many cars I worked on under the carport of that house...clutches, engines...at one point in time, I worked on it all in that carport.   I once had a 65 Corvair that needed the fuel tank work. The gauge didn't work and I had no idea how much gas was in that tank.....Never one to do things 'halfassed" I jumped right in and on the jack stands it went.  When I pulled the gas filler tube off that tank, what I didn't know (because of the gauge not working) it had almost a half a tank of gas in it....the carport was awash in gas just that quick when I removed that filler tube..and there was no putting it back on...it would stop pouring gas when the tank was empty....I finally got the car fixed or traded or something....but that summer, there was a small flower bed beside the carport with landscaping timbers around it....the prettiest little cherry tomato plant shot up and had the reddest cherry tomato on it you have ever seen...but I bet if you had cut it in half and lit it, that tomato would have burned like crazy...

Well, the deed is done and for as much as I like our NEW house...(its beautiful and I LOVE the garage) It was a little bit hard to sign the papers yesterday to close the deal on the house in Sumter....but I could never move back to Sumter, I LOVE the entertainment and things there are to do in Columbia a 1000 times over. It is a fun town and we live in a quiet subdivision with a very tiny yard, I love my work and it has turned out to be a good move for Randi and I. 

You move, you grow and time marches on.....

J.