When I was a little kid, in 1961, my parents took a huge chance – really a giant leap of faith – and bought a vacation house on Cape Cod far from our home in Cincinnati Ohio. I was clueless at the time of how tough a decision this was for them. After they died I came into possession of the important papers for the “7Ws” house on the Cape. By then our family had owned the place for almost 50 years with tons of wonderful memories and lots of funny stories – some funny only in retrospect – and clearly their initial worries were unwarranted, but it could easily have been otherwise.
Now I can relate. The papers included all sorts of documents including handwritten negotiations from the seller and carbon copies of typewritten negotiations from my father (done by his secretary.) But the best find was a humorous reminiscence by my mother handwritten many years later which bears an uncanny resemblance to this blog. Maybe it was my unconscious inspiration. If you want to read the entire thing, you can download the PDF (modern retyping of her original handwritten essay.)