Homes: A Series. In Chronological Order.

In retrospect, my life in the farm house was great. I miss that house a lot. I lived there until I went away to college at 18, and lived there periodically after that until I was in my 20s. Life on the farm gave me plenty of opportunity for contemplation. It also made me feel restrained by the time I was a teen. I wanted to get away and see the world.

Even at two, I looked like an angry demon. I thought life was hard then. It was nothing compared to being 48.

One of the things I loved about life on the farm were the sunsets. Here I was around my 14th birthday. The sunrises were often more spectacular but I wasn't often awake for those. Damn, this is a young kona.

My dad prided himself on what he could build. One day I was out with the shovel in the backyard digging a hole. My parents asked me what I was doing and I said I was digging a hole for a swimming pool. Well, that was about all it took for my dad to decide he could do that, and he did.

Here's another kona shot at 14, living the life of leisure, and probably plotting how to be rich and retired and driving a Mercedes by the time I was 21.

By the time I was 19 going on 20 I had already been to Europe on my own several times. You can see the pins in the map on the wall showing places where I had visited. England was taking a toll on me musically. I wanted to be so very British. I just didn't have the hair for it. That would plague me for years.

Oh, and that kick-ass stereo rack? My dad built it.

And that damn hi-fi was one reason I rarely saw a sunrise. I was up too late listening to punk rock, and various other British bands. Interesting that I was into the Jam because later I would actually see Paul Weller, the front man, in London. But that's a later post on another home series.

Here I was in the front yard. I still remember that windbreaker I was wearing. It was an odd, almost plastic-like material. I bought it at a department store in Stockholm either going to and coming from Finland where I visited a pen-pal.

My mother sold that farm house and 5 acres for something like $65,000 a few years after my dad died in 1982. I harbored notions that someday I could buy it back for about the same price. I would love to live in that house today. My dad and his dad built it. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground a few years ago after the new owners spent a ton of money renovating it. I have suspicions about that but we won't go down that road.

And I may not have been rich or retired by 21, but at least I achieved one of my objectives.

Spoiled brat. Damn I liked that car though. A 1969 280S if I recall. May have been a 68.