Top 10 Experiences From The Exclusive Dwellings I Happily Inhabited
This post is about the Top 10 Experiences From The Exclusive Dwellings I Happily Inhabited and the houses I lived in through my years. It has nothing to do with the people I lived with and specifically my own personal living environments although I may mention a few names.
The House I Live in Now
In 2019, I bought a small house. It is in this house where I live today. The property is 3/4 acre lot between two large churches about a 1/2 mile apart from each other. There are three houses on one side of my house and 7 houses on the other. There is one corner house across the street with a large, open, grassy field at the side of it. The houses are spaced comfortably apart resulting in a desirable level of peace and enjoyment by all neighboring residents. Large maple and walnut and oak and other old growth trees dot the area creating a partly shaded and partly open area. Though the house is located in a large city, the surrounding area is less dense and evokes the atmosphere of a small town. To me this small house and property is a nugget of gold that offers all the riches of value a man could want.
It all started with…
Top 10 Experiences From The Exclusive Dwellings I Happily Inhabited, My Residential History
Purchasing my current house was a result of my life history over the past 30 years of living in the houses, apartments and rooms I owned or rented.
Cline Avenue
When I was born, I was inducted into a 3 bed/1 bath house in Hammond, Indiana. It was there a I learned to walk, then crawl. This ranch style house was just inside the neighborhood entrance off the service road adjacent to the highway. It had a detached garage and fence around the backyard area, a fully grown plum tree in the front yard, another fully grown tree in the backyard which is still there to this day, and a few rows of medium and large bushes to enhance the landscape and privacy. The plumbing was seriously calcified. The hot water in the bathtub came out like a pee stream and the shower head had nowhere near enough pressure to enjoy a hot shower. We never did the plums from the tree out front.
The Dump, AKA Landfill
At 10 years old, we relocated to a house on Calhoun Street in Black Oak, IN, a suburb of Gary, IN. Black Oak was annexed to Gary in 1976. This house was remodeled toward the end of my residency at the Tennessee Avenue house. I lived here until I was 18 years old and graduated high school. The house had an upper main level and a walkout basement. In the rainy months of autumn, there were several floods that soaked the basement. Under the backyard was an underground septic trench that had to be dug out an modified. The kitchen and living room became a great room. There were two bedrooms and one bath upstairs. During the remodel, in the basement they added an additional bedroom, laundry room and living room along with a bathroom with a jetted jacuzzi.
The Living Room Floor
After high school in 1993, I bummed the living room floor in a two-bedroom, downstairs apartment offered by the grace of one of my mom’s old friends. I was there about a year. I am really grateful to have had this place. It was here where I really transitioned into becoming an adult.
The House of Mouse
Next, I rented a two-bedroom half of a duplex for a few months. Only a few months because of the infestation of field mice.
The Dormitory Cramp
After that I lived in a dormitory on a college campus shared by about 12 other guys. As a result of my desire to leave that dingy, populated confinement, I rented a small, upstairs bedroom in an old house on a farm.
The Farmhouse Room
That place was really cozy. It had an unused, personal airstrip attached to it line by fully grown pine trees and wide open fields. Then after having a misguided sense of direction in life, I joined the Marine Corps.
Oohrah Marine Corps
In the Marine Corps, I lived in the San Diego, CA boot camp barracks for three months, cramped with about 40 other young, confused men. Yes, we were all confused; that is another story.
For two years after training, I lived in a pretty decent barracks building on Camp Kinser in Okinawa, Japan located about 200 yards from the coast of the East China Sea. The gods must have favored me to have been placed in a room on the fourth floor facing the waters. I enjoyed the beautiful sunset everyday and a pleasant retreat from the preceding plans of every day. This was resort living at its finest for a PFC/Lance Corporal. I shared rooms in this barracks housing with usually two, and sometimes a rare one other guy, subjectively stated, Marine(s). These two years resulted in a fine and wonderful collection of memories. Then, Camp Pendleton, California.
The Barracks No More
I hated my barracks experience in California, so much so that I made sure my dwelling arrangement wouldn’t last long. As a matter of fact, despite appreciating the connection and camaraderie with my peers, I have never desired being coagulated into any clusterf**k of bodies all being treated the same. As a result, I searched for escape to declare my independence. It just so happened one of former roommates from Okinawa, RT, shared with me the place he was living and how he got there. RT managed to gain residence in a soon-to-be demolished old barracks building located about 1/4 mile from unfiltered view of the Pacific Ocean. Not to mention, there was to be only three roommates in this entire building; I was to be one of them.
I wanted that same residential experience RT had made for himself. Not for the purpose of envy or jealousy, I had to make this happen for myself for my own sanity. And that is exactly what I did. Making this residential desire come true required a few lifestyle changes. I can’t say the aftermath for the years after was completely appealing, but for that momentary period of time in a few months of my residential existence, it was worth it. There is just something about stepping out and seeing dolphins fly above the surface of the waters, even if just for an isolating moment outside the norms of their salty, oceanic dominion.
The Jones Prophecy
I could never have known what my future held for me in this place. I could never have known the who who would bring my life to fullness, and it was at this first place out of active duty in the Marine Corps where my future was prophesied. Although I didn’t know that at the time, now I do. You see now, this beautiful woman, LA Jones, would become my future, but not for another 18 years ahead.
This place was an upstairs, two-bedroom apartment. The community center had a media room, a swimming pool and a racquetball court. I love racquetball. I wish I could find a racquetball court in Louisville, KY, but it doesn’t seem one exists. I might just build one in my backyard. Oh, I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
Despite being located between a large grocery store, a mini-mall and self-storage facility, this place on Jones Blvd. in Las Vegas, NV was the best of my apartment complex dwellings.
Casa Real
The first house I ever purchased was in Las Vegas, NV in an area called The Lakes. It was a 1250 s.f. townhouse in a gated little community. The community has a clubhouse next to the gated pool. I had a Red Rock and mountain view from my upstairs bedroom window. This place also had an attached garage, a small backyard with a six-foot cinder block wall surrounding it. As a matter of fact, Las Vegas is predominantly a city of block walls. Problem was, this house was in a restricted neighborhood with an HOA (Homeowners Association) controlled by a few elected members. It was here I should have learned my lesson about freedom of home ownership versus home ownership under pretense, but, as you will soon discover, I did not learn my lesson the first time. I am not one to desire another person, group of people or entity restricting me from living my life as I choose (see my educated and experienced opinion about HOA’s at the end
*Regarding HOAs
As I stated, I am not one to desire another person, group of people or entity restricting me from living my life as I choose, but, like it or not, there are rules in these communities and the law is not on your individual side. Buyer beware.
HOAs are created with the better good of the group of all owners as opposed to the cocky attitude of a single homeowner (I was one of those, too). In an HOA, it’s about everyone and not just you. You don’t have any point to prove by choosing to own a home in an HOA thinking you are going to convert new followers. My realistic recommendation, if you, as an individual, do not like rules especially when it comes to living your life on your terms on your own property, find a place outside an organized community. And please, spare me and yourself the my-hard-earned-money whatever speech as I have one, too. More than one actually. There have been plenty of occasions when I allow my creative destruction to idealize just to get even with those commie bas–. Wait a minute, when it comes to for the good of all being done right, there are sacrifices I will certainly make for my individual benefits. Oohrah Marine Corps and all the freedom fighter jazz.