Author: cdrbill34@gmail.com

My first full day in my current home — 3706 South Mission Road, Fallbrook, Calif. — was January 1, 2012. The years since mean that I have lived here longer than anywhere else in my adult life. I’m in my 9th year here and two previous “long” residencies were about eight years each.

To some, this is likely no big deal. My friends who have lived in the same place for decades, however, might consider me at least footloose.

Since I graduated from Boston College in 1968, I’ve lived at 26 separate addresses in 19 different cities/towns, 22 zip codes, and six different states — Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and California. All but four residences were rentals (the Navy ship and Navy quarters ashore were free). I have owned one home in Massachusetts and three in California.

I’m going to give some information about each residence in chronological order. I’ve been able to find contemporary photos I took of some residences and have found images of others online, usually Google Street View. 

After graduating from BC, I went home to Springfield, Mass., worked at the local newspaper, then took some time to drive out to Ohio to see friends and to Chicago to see a girl. Then I joined the Navy.

Nimitz Hall, Naval Officer Candidate School, Naval Base, Newport, R.I. 02841 — September 1968-February 1969

I had technically “joined” the Navy earlier in terms of taking the enlistment oath, etc. Being in the Navy started on September 28, 1968.

I was a member of Class A6903 and the 14 of us lived on the first floor of Nimitz Hall. Two guys to a room. Communal bathroom. Excuse me, communal head.

Some motel, Norfolk, Va. — February-May 1969
I spent nine weeks in Norfolk, Va., attending courses in Naval Intelligence and Combat Information Center (CIC) procedures. Stupidly, I did not take advantage of the free housing for bachelor officers and rented a room, likely by the week, in a local motel. I assume my mailing address would have been through the command.

USS Biddle (DLG-34)

I reported aboard Biddle on 3 May 1969 and lived on the ship for the next nine or so months, including a deployment to Southeast Asia (the Vietnam thing), and later for another month cruising in the Caribbean. For a couple of months in early 1970, I and two shipmates rented a house in Norfolk. No idea where.

Our mailing address was one of two Fleet Post Offices, one in New York and another in San Francisco, depending on which ocean we were in.

Bachelor Officers Quarters, Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, Calif. — July 1970-July 1971
I was ordered to Commander, Naval Special Warfare Group, Pacific, which was located on the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado.

The BOQ was a multi-story rectangular slab (and I cannot find a photo; Google Street View does not go onto the base), but the rooms were great, especially their free cost. And the view!

I was released from active duty a few months early, because the Navy was drawing down from Vietnam and I had been readmitted to Columbia Graduate School of Journalism beginning in September. After a couple of months at home, off to the Big Apple!

West 78th Street, New York City 10024 — 1971-72
My first residence in New York in 1971 was on West 78th Street, Manhattan. It’s probably a pretty tony address these days, but the early 1970s were not the greatest time in New York. Fun and all, but a bit dangerous and tawdry (which may have been some of the reasons it was fun).

I had driven down to the city from my parents’ house in Springfield, Mass., in the summer to find a place. In what would become typical fashion, I found it in a day and secured rental of a fourth-floor walkup on 78th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive. It was in an old brownstone, a perhaps once elegant home with rooms now broken up into apartments. A wall erected in the single room created a “bedroom” and a kitchen and bathroom were wedged into two corners.

I noted the presence on the apartment entry door of two deadbolt locks and a security bar. The bar had one end on the floor and the other was connected to the door near its handle. You slid the bar over to “lock” it in place. Hmmmm.

I stayed up late the first night I was there. Watched Citizen Kane on TV. When I woke up the next day, I saw that both deadbolts had been unlocked and the security bar had been moved, but not enough to “unlock” it. Yikes.

I made sure from then on that everything was locked up, and I think I jury-rigged something else to secure the door.

West 110th Street, New York City 10025 — 1972
For security reasons, and maybe others (mucho roaches), I moved from W78th after a couple of months. I must have been on a month-to-month or something. I probably found my next place from a list at Columbia. Ended up moving into a bedroom in an apartment  in a massive building on West 110th Street, just east of Broadway and much closer to campus. My apartment mate was an elderly man (probably younger than I am now), who was very quiet and unobtrusive. His daughter, I believe, was the person who acted as “landlord.”

Columbia Journalism School was a one-year program. But “class” was every day, nine to five. If you didn’t have an actual “class” where you sat to listen to a lecture, you were out doing assigned reporting or working on a film (not video) or broadcast. I had been admitted originally to the Class of 1969 when Navy service intervened. I became acquainted with a member of that class when I later worked at Berkeley. 

Tom Goldstein was dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley 1988-96 and later became dean at Columbia. Tom told me that members of his class at Columbia (which would have been my class, too) had an average of three job offers per person. I believe that my class (1972) flipped that, with about a third of the class having any job offer at all. There had been a significant change in the Newspaper Guild contract, I recall being told, which disadvantaged most new journalists.

West Roxbury and Salem, Mass. — 1972
I ended up getting a job offer, though it was not at the New York Times or any other major paper. Sometime in the summer of 1972, I joined the staff of the Beverly Times, one in a newspaper “chain” based on the North Shore of Boston. Initially, I crashed at the apartment of friends in West Roxbury, sleeping on a couch.

The commute to work was . . . ah, difficult. It was about 30 miles each way, and one would do most of it on Route 128. It took quite a while and meant I needed to leave by around 6 am. I made the situation worse by staying up to watch the 1972 Democratic Convention. I was a fan of Senator George McGovern at the time and wanted to see him secure the nomination. That convention was more than fractious and procedures often went long past midnight. 

So I was late to work several days in a row. It was not unnoticed. I was “urged” to move closer and get to work on time. I took a room at a pretty decrepit hotel in downtown Salem, Mass. It featured lawn furniture in the lobby. There were no phones or toilets in the rooms. You gave out the hotel number and, if someone called, this very loud buzzer would go off and you had to go to the lobby. Toilets were down the hall. I don’t recall the hotel name and doubt it still exists.

24 Fletcher Street, Winchester, Mass. 01890 — 1972-73
I think I lasted in Salem for only a few weeks, thank goodness. My savior was Reid Oslin, high school and college classmate. He called me to ask if I might want to be the third in a house rental in Winchester. Yes! Please!

The person who had secured the house was Gene Uchacz, director of the RecPlex and men’s lacrosse team at Boston College, where Reid also worked. The commute became significantly easier and the living arrangement was simply great. Not long after we moved in, Tommy joined us. Tommy was Gene’s Old English Sheepdog.

The house was a duplex, two bedrooms, one bath. We occupied the right-hand side. Being last one in, I lived up in the “attic,” with the gable window. Reid reminded me recently that there was no heat in the attic. I recall scraping ice off the inside of the window during the winter.

There were several, I mean many, wonderful parties. I spent time making party tapes, recording a mix of songs on a single tape to play on a reel-to-reel. That way, we didn’t need a record player and didn’t have to change records frequently. Just roll the tape and, when it ended a couple of hours later, rewind and replay. (I’m sure younger folks will be puzzled by these terms and references.)

One party apparently generated complaints from neighbors about noise. A couple of Winchester cops showed up. Checking the party out, they hung around for longer than maybe would have been necessary just to get us to turn the volume down.

Woodgate Apartments, Enfield, Conn. 06082 — 1973-74
Home life in Winchester was great, work life in Beverly not so much. I contacted the Springfield (Mass.) Daily News, where I had worked summers as a college student, and took a reporting job there.

I spent a few weeks living with my parents and then joined Leo de Natale, another former Beverly Times escapee who had gotten a job with the Hartford Times, in renting an apartment in the Woodgate Apartments in Enfield, Conn., just over the state line from Springfield.

More good times, and an even easier commute. But I did miss being in the Boston area.

Mediterranean Woods, South Weymouth, Mass. 02188– 1974-75
Reid came through again. In summer 1974, he contacted me and said there had been a change in the public relations staff at BC, with Eddie Miller now the chief PR person. Eddie, he said, was interested in talking with me about joining his staff. I was offered a job and got a raise.

Back to Boston . . . and BC!

After a couple of weeks sharing a house with another former Beverly Times colleague on Hawes Street in Cambridge, Mass., I joined my sister, Ann, at Mediterranean Woods, South Weymouth, an apartment complex just off Route 3.

That led to some number of months “enjoying” the commute between Chestnut Hill and the South Shore. It was worse than the earlier North Shore commute.

Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 02116 — 1975-76
One of the tonier addresses on this list is my year or so on Beacon Street in Boston’s Back Bay, between Clarendon and Dartmouth streets. This apartment was another instance of a grand townhouse turned into separate apartments. My second-floor unit faced the street and had large bay windows on that front wall. A kitchen and bath area had been carved into a corner and my “bedroom” was a loft.

It was a great location in terms of access to much of what Boston had to offer. It also had no assigned parking. Spent a lot of time trying to find a parking space, feeding meters, and walking back and forth to wherever it was I could find a space. I remember, in one snowstorm, just driving into a pile of snow and leaving it.

We made best use of the location at the annual Boston Pops July Fourth Celebration on the Esplanade in 1976. That was America’s Bicentennial, so it was an extra special occasion, attended by an estimated 400,000 people. Ann and friends dropped stuff off at my apartment early and we joined the throngs on the Esplanade, a few hundred yards away.

The location was especially helpful in terms of toilet. There were perpetual long lines at the porta-potties, but my apartment was an easy walk.

I also remember an earlier special night, even though I was alone in the apartment, pretty sick with the flu. I was on the couch, watching on a very small TV the sixth game of the 1975 World Series, taking place less than a mile west of me, in Fenway Park. The game against Cincinnati had gone into the 12th inning. Boston catcher Carlton Fisk was at bat. He hit a long fly ball toward the Green Monster in left field. As he ran down the first base line, he motioned with his arms for the ball to stay in fair territory. Only barely. The ball hit the foul pole, which meant it was a fair ball and the winning home run. I think I tried to cheer. I may well have failed in that, but I had a pleasant sleep.

Lake Shore Road, Brighton, Mass. 02135 — 1976-77
Rent for the Beacon Street apartment was $325 a month, I believe. That would be about $1,600 today. I think my salary at the time was maybe $14,000 a year. After taxes and other expenses, that rent started to hurt a little. I thought it better to find a roommate or two to reduce expenditures.

Len Deluca, whom I had come to know working at BC, was a student at BC Law then. I joined him and a guy named Howie, renting an apartment in Towne Estates, a collection of apartment buildings off Lake Street and adjoining Chandler’s Pond (the “lake”), only a few blocks away from Commonwealth Avenue and the BC campus.

This commute was so easy that I remember driving to work one morning, maybe early, when it was snowing, and realizing after a while that I was alone. I called the BC operator (another puzzler for young’uns), who informed me BC was closed due to the storm.

425 Partridge Street, Franklin, Mass. 02038 — 1977-82
I turned 30 in 1976 and actually had a bit of a tough time about it. “Adulthood” and all that that entailed loomed before me. And it came to be.

I had met and was dating on a singular basis a young woman named Rebecca. Holding a steady job and eligible for a VA loan, which required no down payment, I looked into buying a house.

Rebecca joined me on the tours of houses and I noticed that the real estate agents (all women, as I remember) spent most of the time talking with her. What about a house was she interested in? What was her reaction to the house we just saw? I ended up in the back seat, literally and figuratively.

They were smarter than I was, however. I, with Rebecca’s approval, bought a small Cape in Franklin, a community still containing a lot of farms southeast of Boston, a marathon (26 miles) away. I think the mortgage was for $36,000. We moved in sometime in the early fall of 1977.

The house had 1,296 square feet, two bedrooms and a bath on the ground floor, with two bedrooms in a finished attic

We lived there when we were married (in 1978) and had our first two children (1980 and 1982).

In 1979, we took a road trip across the United States in our Volkswagon diesel Rabbit. When we came back, we agreed there were three places we visited to which we would consider a move — New Orleans, San Diego, and San Francisco.

I had been working at BC for eight years. I had been told I would not be considered for the open position of Director of Public Relations because I was considered “too radical.” So I thought about a change.

I saw a job opening at the University of Southern California for director of publications and applied. I interviewed with my prospective boss for the job at the annual conference of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), which saved him the cost of my visiting LA. Soon thereafter, I learned someone else had been selected. Bummer.

Then I was contacted by San Diego State University. The person who was director of publications there was the person selected by USC. They asked USC who their second choice had been and it was me. SDSU didn’t want to go through a lengthy search process, so I got the call. I met my prospective boss at BC as she was attending a conference in Boston.

This was taking place near the end of Rebecca’s pregnancy with our second child, a circumstance that did not allow me right away to make a visit to San Diego. Son Dillon was born on October 1, 1982, and I soon took my trip. Two days of interviews and I was hired. They had a realtor drive me around to look at a few options for housing. I remember thinking the neighborhoods looked so familiar. Then I realized the familiarity came from seeing ones just like them on so many TV shows.

8622 Warmwell Drive, San Diego, Calif. 92119 — 1982-84
BC colleague and good friend Lee Pellegrini agreed to accompany me on a cross-country drive to San Diego, in the Rabbit again. I believe I paid for housing and food, as well as his plane trip home. It took us six days or so.

Once we were in San Diego, we set out to look at rentals. Unfamiliar with San Diego, we didn’t realize how the topography made finding addresses difficult. You might be looking for an address with the number 3545, get on the street and find that the street ended at 2887. Additional houses were on the other side of the canyon where the same street continued. It happened several times. This is way pre-GPS, of course.

Found a place in the San Carlos neighborhood, in the eastern part of the city. Not a Cape. This was one floor, large open living area, three bedrooms, one bath, 1,577 square feet, patio, canyon view. SoCal!

We had sold the house in Franklin, so Rebecca and the two kids, ages 2 years and a couple of months, spent a bit of time in Springfield with my parents before flying out to California. I’m pretty sure they flew out of Bradley Field in Connecticut and that there were at least two connecting flights to get to San Diego. Not easy for Rebecca. They arrived not long after the movers and came to San Diego during one of the wettest winters in its history. 🙂

My employment was probationary for the first two years. I realized not long into my employ that my boss wanted me to do something about a member of my staff with which I disagreed. I then realized that my employment might well be terminated if I didn’t do it, so I started looking for a change. A colleague at SDSU told me about an opening at University of California Berkeley.

7116 Plank Avenue, El Cerrito, Calif. 94530 — 1984-85
I was invited to come up to Berkeley for an interview. When I learned that they intended to offer me the job, depending on references, etc., I explained the circumstances that had prompted me to look for a job after less than two years in my current one and asked that they not contact my boss. They agreed. It was such a pleasure later to surprise my boss with the announcement that I would be working at Berkeley.

Berkeley provided listings of rentals to prospective employees and faculty. I flew up one morning and started to check them out. By the time I left that afternoon back to San Diego, I had secured a rental in El Cerrito, a couple of towns north of Berkeley in the East Bay.

One floor, three bedrooms, two baths, 1,219 square feet.

1605 Bonita Avenue, Berkeley, Calif. 94709 — 1985-92
Again, feeling secure in my job and getting pretty good pay, we started to look for a home to buy. Our realtor found a home in what had been termed the “gourmet ghetto” of Berkeley, maybe three-quarters of a mile north of my office. The area contained several notable eating, food, and coffee establishments, including Chez Panisse and the first Peet’s Coffee. A San Francisco Chronicle article had given the area the moniker, citing that people “dressed up for breadlines” as they sought morning fare from bakeries.

The university had been founded in the mid-19th century on what was described as the “German model.” Students would live in the community surrounding the university rather than in dormitories, and faculty would also be in the community. As a result, Berkeley had few dorms for students and many properties were constructed or renovated to provide student housing.

The house we bought was a late 19th-century maybe Queen Ann-style, gabled but on the low end of ornamentation. It had two unconnected floors. The lower level had been renovated into a two-bedroom/one bath rental unit, and the upper level was also two bedrooms, one bath, and had a dropped ceiling. In the back yard had been plunked another rental unit, a two-bedroom/one-bath single-story “ranch” house.

With our kids young, we figured we could rent out the bottom unit to students. And we wanted the back house as a potential place for my mother to live.

Mortgage rates at the time were about 12 percent. The people who owned the house thought of us, our realtor said, as a nice young family (which we were) that could use a break (which we could). Our original mortgage was interest-only payments with a balloon for the whole amount in five years. We were able to secure regular financing within a couple of years.

My mother did move into the house in the back. Using some of the proceeds from the sale of her house back in Springfield, Mass., we moved her furniture and belongings out and renovated the house for her arrival.

We also began renovation of the main house. The kids were older and more numerous, with a second daughter born in 1989. We wanted to connect the two floors in the main house by adding a simple stairway inside, which required a permit. The city ruled, however, that such an action was against city policy in that it would reduce the number of distinct rental units and the permit was denied. We did what many other owners did and built the stairway anyway (the person who later bought the house from us had no problem with that).

By the early ’90s, we were concerned about schools for our kids who were now approaching or at middle school age. Berkeley public schools were iffy and private schools expensive. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease and it had progressed to the point that she needed to be in an assisted-living facility. We decided to look into communities on the other side of the Berkeley/Oakland hills.

The person who bought the house from us in 1992 still lives there. Realtor.com estimates the current value of the property at $1,745,000.

45 Robert Road, Orinda, Calif. 94563 — 1992-95
We bought our “dream house” in summer 1992. It was located in the town of Orinda. Single-story, four bedrooms, two baths, walk-in pantry, Sub-Zero refrigerator, and a pool. 

Be careful what you wish for.

For reasons I expect actually had nothing to do with the house, Rebecca almost immediately began to talk about returning to New Hampshire, where she had been born and raised. To make a long, depressing story short, she filed for divorce and left for New Hampshire after Christmas, taking our three-year-old daughter with her, and leaving our son and older daughter with me. She returned to us in the spring, but the divorce proceeded and I was soon under court order to sell the house.

It took quite a while. And in 1996, the house was sold for $65,000 less than we paid. Currently, Zillow estimates its value at $1.95 million.

3366 Mount Diablo Blvd. #52, Lafayette, Calif. 94549 — 1995-96
Lafayette was and is a nice community just east of Orinda. Park Lafayette Apartments was an apartment complex “downtown.” Not a home, just a place to stay.

Based on how our divorce judge had ruled previously, I figured the only way I was going to continue to be able to see my kids was to get a position in New Hampshire. I saw an opening for a director of publications at the University of New Hampshire, Durham. I applied and, after coming up with a rationale for why I was leaving Berkeley for UNH and taking a significant pay cut, I was hired.

I was due to start September 1. Then Rebecca sought a new custody evaluation. We had 50-50 custody of the three kids at the time. The therapist appointed as special master for the evaluation was vacationing in August and wouldn’t be able to start until September. The special master advised that we be on a week-to-week custody exchange.

I was able to arrange with my bosses at Berkeley and UNH that I would continue to work for Berkeley until the evaluation was concluded and “commute” to UNH every other week, beginning my work there as a “consultant.”

Thus began several weeks of coast-to-coast flights San Francisco-Boston. Lots of money, but also lots of mileage points.

Again to alleviate the reader from extended discussion of the custody evaluation, the decision came down. I was awarded full legal and physical custody of my son and younger daughter, while my then-16-year-old daughter would stay with her mother but undergo reconciliation with me.

Longmarsh Road, Durham, N.H. 03824 — October 1996-February 1997
We moved to the sticks. I couldn’t find the house on Google Street View or a picture from that time. Indeed, Google Street View does not go far enough on Longmarsh Road to view the house. This overview gives you a good idea of the area.

I rented the house knowing it had been put up for sale. The agent and owners assured me that was not likely to happen anytime soon. So, of course, a couple of months after we moved in, I was informed the house had been sold and we would need to vacate no later than February.

16 Denbow Road, Durham, N.H. 03824 — February 1997 – May 2000
It’s not like there are a ton of rental opportunities in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire in mid-winter. I got lucky for the first time in a long time.

This house was bigger than we needed, and is, I believe, the biggest house in which I have ever lived. It was available, somewhat affordable, and less isolated than Longmarsh. Just under 2,300 square feet, four bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths. The lot was .92 acres, another record at the time.

We spent more than three years there. We might have stayed longer, but I had another boss who sought to pressure me to do things I thought not good for staff. We actually parted ways in spring 1999 and I spent a year trying to do some consulting from home. My son was in his senior year of high school and I was worried that getting another job that would require relocation was adding too much instability to my kids.

With my son approaching graduation, however, I needed to get another job.

15 Feneno Terrace, Brookline, Mass. 02446 — June 2000-July 2008
Another “long” residence. Former BC colleague Ben Birnbaum told me about a job opening at the Lynch School of Education at BC. I applied and was hired, to begin May 1. Ben also had told me the first floor apartment in his home was available, beginning June 1.

For the month of May 2000, I commuted Durham-Boston. It was frustrating to cross the Tobin Bridge, after driving an hour, have the Prudential Center in view and know I probably had another hour ahead of me to cover the last 10 miles. It was a bit easier going back to New Hampshire in the evening, except for Fridays. If I left at 5 on Fridays, I expected to get to Durham around 8 pm.

In June, we moved to Brookline. Feneno Terrace is a short dead-end street that originates in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. Only the last house on each side of the street in this picture is in Brookline. Our apartment is on the right.

I was able to enroll my daughter in Brookline schools. Her first was Devotion School, on Harvard Street near Coolidge Corner, where she attended sixth-eighth grades.

We left the largest home in which we had lived into the smallest. The apartment was two-bedroom, one bath, with a dining room and kitchen.

87 Beal Road, Waltham, Mass. 02453 — July 2008-August 2010
Maybe feeling footloose after eight years, I wanted a bigger place and found a rental in Waltham. My daughter had graduated from Brookline High School the year before and was in her freshman year at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md. She spent vacations and summers in Waltham.

Three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, 1,376 square feet, and a pool.

I remember a maintenance routine for the pool in which some of the water was pumped out. The procedure was supposed to be somewhat brief. One morning, I started the procedure. When I came home in the afternoon, I looked out the kitchen window at the pool and was surprised at how clear the water was.

Then I realized, “What water?” It was “clear” because it was air. I had pumped out the entire contents of the pool. !!??

I don’t think it was for that reason, but the owner not long after chose to have the pool removed.

Once again, we had the house pulled out from under us when the owner notified me in summer 2010 that the house had been sold.

70 Hope Avenue #201, Waltham, Mass. 02453 — September 2010-September 2011
Longview Place Apartments, also in Waltham, offered a promotion in summer 2010 — discounted rent and utilities included. Two bedroom, two baths, about 1,200 square feet. Nice modern apartment.

The following year, there was a significant increase in rent.

My last day of work at BC was to be December 31, 2011. In the spring, I began to look for a place to retire. I didn’t have Southern California on my radar at all. One day, looking online at the LA Times, I saw an article about a sharp decline in housing prices in Oceanside, Calif. “I know where that is,” I thought.

Browsing real estate websites, I saw that the price range for houses in that area of North San Diego County at the time might be doable. Moving a bit further from the coast, I came across a community with which I was totally unfamiliar. Prices were even better in Fallbrook and there was land. I did not want to live in the California I had been used to, with houses often very close together, with small lots.

I had to figure out a way to explain that, while I was working at Boston College, I was buying a house 3,000 miles away. I was able to get my boss, who knew of my plans, to sign a statement authorizing me to work from home, even one in California. It worked and I received approval from my bank and a mortgage company for a mortgage in an amount that would permit me to buy in the Fallbrook area.

In August 2011, I traveled to San Diego. I had tracked down 10-12 homes I wanted to check out and spent a couple of days driving around Fallbrook to view them. When I met with my realtor, he informed that all but two had been sold. We drove out to the two and neither was satisfactory.

As we left the second house, the realtor asked if I might look at a house he was representing. It was not yet listed on the market, but he thought it might be of interest to me. Though disappointed at the spare pickings, I agreed. We drove to it and the entrance was initially rather blasé to me.

Walking in, however, I saw the open layout and the view. Four bedrooms, two baths, combo dining/living area, 1,680 square feet, and on 1.35 acres. And the price was right. I didn’t need four bedrooms, but I wanted the house to be perhaps a bridge for my kids, a place they might live until they found a place of their own.

I told the realtor this could work and I would give an answer the next day. I called the next day and said let’s go for it.

I returned to Boston and began the paperwork process to try to secure the house. The realtor advised me to offer less than the asking price, which I did. The counteroffer came back $1,000 higher. “Okay, what’s the catch?” I asked the realtor. He said it was simply to reach the owner’s “emotional minimum,” and we got going on the rest of the paperwork. The realtor said I bought the house for about half of what it would have cost a few years earlier.

First time in my life, I think, that I bought low.

My lease at Longview was about to run out and I had to begin making mortgage payments on the Fallbrook house, so I looked for an inexpensive gap rental.

63 Forest Street, Brookline, Mass. 02445 — October-December 2011
A basement unit in this house was listed at BC as available. It was located in an area called Buttonwood Village, just a block or two from The Country Club, world-famous golf course. 

The owner had not gotten interest from students earlier in the fall, so she was amenable to renting to me for a few weeks.

I had a moving firm put my furniture, etc., into storage. The plan was for me and the moving van to go across country at about the same time.

BC has an extended holiday break for staff. I figured I would start the drive on the day after Christmas. My younger daughter and her boyfriend accompanied me and my cat. Neither of them had a driver’s license, however, so I drove the distance. The last day of the drive was December 31, 2o11, Tucson to Fallbrook. 

3706 South Mission Road, Fallbrook, Calif. 92028 — January 2012 – ?
Upon arrival, having worried about the house being vacant for four months, I was very happy to see that squatters had not established residence and that no one had come in and trashed it. We made an emergency trip to IKEA for mattresses and bedding and woke up the next morning in 2012.

And here I am . . . still.