Well, May 18, 1998, my son Sean was born so on this day I have to acknowledge how proud I am of him and glad to be his Dad. He was born at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. All went well, until he popped out with a nuchal cord, or umbilical cord wrapped around his neck a few times. Luckily it went well and he was and is all good.
But May 18th, 2026, BIG day. It's the day the house gets visited by the prospective buyers and their home inspector. I've already given them the skinny on the house, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But now it'll come from a neutral professional. And I'm scared shitless. But the truth is, they want to house, badly, the only question is are there to many things for them to do. So, they'll either stay, or move along looking for their first home. That'll kill me.
This weekend was murder. We ran around tightening up this, replacing that, and cleaning out the dreaded basement. It's 100 years old, and you can just imagine the dungeon like appearance and feeling you'd get if you went down the stairs. One of my to-do things, that the future owners saw and were a little taken aback by, was the snakelike maze of electrical wires
that were just hanging around so to speak. So, with the breakers off, all but one, we made short, no pun intended, work of it, and soon had them loaded into the dumpster.
I did find a nice 6-foot lightweight ladder that I'll bring up to the Vineyard in a few weeks. No more humping that heavy fiberglass one around, this one is a dream to carry. It was also getting rid of old college refrigerators, turnout gear from the old firehouse days, and my bin of
old newspaper clippings from when I worked as a photographer. That was tough to go through and load up into the dumpster. But I did have fun remembering some of the assignments that I covered for newspapers from around New Jersey and New York City. Here's some that stick out,
Governor Corzine's accident, I was the only one to get an image out that evening, that was for the Associated Press,
My only NY Post cover, a funeral director who sold body parts. Of course, in NY Post style, one of the later covers called this guy and his creepy friends, "Ghoul and the Gang",
Four columns, in color, and above the fold, in The NY Times Metro Section. That was a fire in Sea Bright on Ocean Ave, I think it was -50 degrees that day,
A Jersey Journal homicide that I climbed the roof fire escape, in my pajamas, to get the Birds Eye view. That was in Jersey City,
A Red Bank Register photo of a ride I took with Gloria Nelson when she got the first car phone in Monmouth County back in 1986,
And a photo that The NY Times picked up from Getty Images of a shot I got, interestingly enough, of the Delaware River in Trenton,
And my first published spot news image from April 1986 of a guy who got hit by a car while on his motorcycle, that one was special.
There were a hundred or so more but, it's time to downsize and go, and they all went. I didn't save one. I had a hard time doing that, but who really cares? Theresa? The kids? The maybe grandkids one day? Later, and into the container it went. Sad, but that's how it goes.
The other thing that stung was 'The Tank". The bigger one went with the last dumpster and now the smaller one will meet it's demise. I had so much fun with them over the last four years and put a ton of fish into them. It was a great way to photograph them and give them a chance to catch their breath before their release.
But it is now sitting on top of the "Coming Soon" sale that I put out a few weeks back. So, will I have to make up a new sign after tomorrow? That would totally deflate me if I did. I am done. Tired. Spent. And have no more skill or will to do anything else around the house. If it goes through and we have a signed contract then there's a house down in Sun City we'll buy sight unseen if they accept our sale contingency. We trust our realtor, she said, "This is a good house for you guys. I can see you in this one". So it could be Game, Set, Match. Fingers crossed. I'm going to plant St. Joseph in the ground in the morning. "Dear Saint Joseph.....", just please come through.
