On the Road Less Traveled by Ed Hajim

Author:Ed Hajim
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510764323
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2021-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

DURING THE EARLY 1970S, things on the home front were going very well. Barbara and I were very happy on Londonderry Drive and never intended to move. But one day, out of the blue, she got a call from her friend Judy Steinhardt, who was real-estate hunting for herself. She asked Barbara to come along to help.

Well, you know what happened. Judy didn’t buy anything, but Barbara came home all excited about a gorgeous French country home on eight acres called Fox Lair, just two blocks from Londonderry Drive. It came complete with a pool, was on a pond, and backed up to a nature preserve—the works. When Barbara told me that we had to see it, I thought she was crazy, especially after hearing the listing price! No way we could afford it. However, she was convinced it was the ideal home for our family.

As usual, her patience and determination paid off. Over time, the price kept coming down, as did the price of all real estate at that time. (In 1974 and ’75, real estate crashed in New York and Connecticut.) Then one of the owners died and the other closed the house, leaving it empty. A year later, it was put up for sale to settle the estate. Phil Drake, a lawyer friend, phoned us and said that the price had been cut by two-thirds: were we interested?

Thrilled, we decided to buy Fox Lair even though we couldn’t sell our house on Londonderry Drive. We also knew that Fox Lair needed work. For one thing, it was full of mildew—but we were ready to tackle it because once it was cleaned up, it would be perfect for us.

As Barbara said, it only took a year and around a thousand gallons of Clorox and six thousand gallons of white paint to make it livable. And fortunately, just before we moved into our dream home, the house on Londonderry did sell, making us more comfortable financially. As it turned out, we would remain at Fox Lair for the following twenty-seven years.

It really was the ideal home for us. It had four bedrooms and five baths upstairs and a lovely guest room on the first floor that we called Grandma’s room. Even the basement was wonderful—there was a large area down there that we called the cat room because it had a little door that the cat could go in and out of all by herself.

The concrete walls in the basement were painted red, and it became the preferred hangout for the kids and their friends. We always encouraged the kids to have their friends over, and Barbara made sure our refrigerator was well stocked at all times. Plus she always had a tray of cookies or muffins sitting on the kitchen counter. (A habit she still continues.) Once, she found a note on the refrigerator from one of Brad’s friends telling us that we had run out of chocolate ice cream! Another time, after coming home from a family

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