Despite the snarky captions I've included in this shot, I just want to say for the record that the city needs to just leave this guy alone. My Mom wouldn't agree, she thinks it's annoying.
For context, this isn't an Appalachian shanty, it's the burbs. One of the wealthiest counties in America last I heard. But I don't see this as an eyesore. This is one man's fight against the whole notion of a homeowners association. And a quest for more stuff. He has between four and eight cars all the time, paring the collection down when the city fines him. But if someone's getting ready to trade something in, he just can't stand to let it go.
Oh, and he's a World War II vet, but he won't retire. He's been at the same job over fifty years. I guess he needs the money to buy more stuff with.
Maybe they'd cut him some slack on the two pickups, two Cadillacs, the '69 Olds 442 with the bashed in side that's been under a tarp since a dump truck collided with it in (if memory serves) 1982, etc., if he'd put a couple of them in the garage. Except he can't put anything more in the garage until he gets rid of a couple of motorcycles and street sweepers.
Yep, street sweepers. He bought them back in the 1960s so he could go into business cleaning parking lots.
In fairness, I've never seen the street sweepers, I take him at his word that they're there. I grew up with his son, so I've been in the house many times. But by 1976, when I first saw the inside of the garage, there was so much other stuff heaped on the street sweepers you couldn't see them well enough to tell what they were. And that was before the reloading gear for the gun collection...
The basement is a wonderland, because every toy I ever wanted and couldn't have was had, played with 2.2 times, and deposited on a heap in the basement. I wouldn't be surprised if an eBay auction of the 70s-era toys fetched more than the house if you liquidated the estate.
When Mom found out he'd bought some land with a barn out in the country for his junk, she brightened a bit. But then she found out he's only bringing new acquisitions there, he's not going to take any of the stuff from home down there until he gets around to fixing up the barn. Then Mom's head blew up like in 'Scanners.'
And my neighbors think I'm a blight on the community. I don't flatter myself, I'm not even ready to play for the minors.
And this is my childhood friend's patrimony. Whatever money is in over-funded 401k and IRA plans, the real inheritance will be selling all this junk back to the junk collecting community...
Someday, Lamont, this will all be yours!
2 comments:
Well, in case you look back here for an answer: a 96% blockage of my LAD (a.k.a. the widowmaker), high cholesterol, a sedentary lifestyle, Celebrex, bacon and cigarettes probably didn't help.
I'd been off the but for almost seven years when I died, so I"m not sure that was a factor, but I was within the time they say it can be. And I'd shaped up my diet in a radical way a few months before. The Celebrex, I don't know, I'm not joining any lawsuits, but I was on it for a couple of months that year.
Only 4% of people in my situation make it back, and I was only 32. Denial, even in the hospital I told people it was impossible I'd had a heart attack. But everyone practices denial: the insurance company tried to tell my wife she'd be on the hook for what turned out to be over $50,000 in medical bills because I had my cardiac arrest by an out-of-network hospital. When she failed to see my heart attack and raise a stroke, they decided not to be total assheads.
So now I take more drugs than Abbie Hoffman, probably won't have non-group life insurance in my lifetime, etc.
That guy’s kids, or whoever will have to clean up the MESS when he croaks will shit themselves.
I’m not up for the city making regulations, but if someone’s house/yard IS visually unappealing to the neighbors I think…something should be done. Hell, I get pissed off alone with my whacky neighbor that leaves some of her lights on ALL night long. She can’t quite grasp the fact that the reason cats haven’t invented electricity is because they don’t NEED it. I assume this is the reason she leaves the damn things on…
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