THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407220278
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 58 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
For me, over the years, house-hunting has sort of been like being a short, tongue-tied teenager and going to a dance where all the girls are tall, sophisticated and gorgeous.
You look at yourself in a mirror, glance at the girls, and know right off the knockouts are all out of your reach.
That's generally how I've felt each time I headed out in search of a new home. I'd start with fancy dreams, seeking the perfect place in the best neighborhood, confident that somehow I'd stumble onto a house that had everything I ever wanted.
After a month or so I'd run smack into reality - suddenly realizing after checking my bank balance that the house of my dreams was unlikely to fall into my hands.
And then, after frustrating searches, I'd discover that a house didn't have to be perfect to be a great home. Some bushes, some bricks, some bookshelves and a lot of sweat can turn even modest lodgings into a treasured castle.
After I signed the papers, I always was hit by second thoughts, wondering whether this really was the place for me. But once I moved in and got settled, I'd feel so comfortable that I couldn't imagine anything nicer. Never have I felt uncomfortable with the place I called home.
So when I was assigned to the Outer Banks and we started looking for a place to permanently throw our hats, I was wiser than in previous relocations.
This time, I wasn't searching for the Taj Mahal. All I really insisted on was that our home have a porch, since I agree with that old saying that a house without a porch is like a nose without a face.
And I hoped to be within walking distance to a deep-water marina where I could tie up the Wind Gypsy and check the lines regularly on my little sailboat. I also wanted the warmth of small-town living. My wife went along with my wishes.
Guess what happened?
After a couple of weeks of checking out everything in sight, we found the house of our dreams, beautifully built and tended by the owner, surrounded by trees. It has a front porch. It's not far from the picturesque port in Manteo. Folks seem as friendly as the people in the tiny town where I grew up as part of a clan that had lived nearby for more than a century.
(And don't tell anybody this, because it might tarnish my well-merited reputation of a country boy just trying to learn, but it has a swimming pool! My wife's ideal home has always included a pool. I would have settled for a house that had running water and an indoor privy. So we're both delighted).
Of course, we haven't yet been to the bank, a place where country boys are never very comfortable. Where I grew up, honest, God-fearing people didn't borrow money. They paid cash.
These days, things take an awful lot of cash, so it's off to the bank or forget it.
I always break into a sweat when the banker asks me to ``stretch out on the couch and tell me about your money.'' And the perspiration pours when she sticks a 12-foot long piece of paper crammed with tiny type in front of me and tells me to sign all 93 copies in 17 different places.
However, my wife - who reminds me of one of those gorgeous, sophisticated girls who scared the socks off me when I was short and shy - has convinced me that everything's going to be all right.
She's already decided what kinds of curtains will go where, how many new swim suits she'll need to properly make the best use of the pool, where the ramp should be built so her mom won't have to climb steps, and how we're going to find room for a six-foot-wide china cabinet.
Me? I'm still wishing I had checked out the house more thoroughly before we said ``we do'' to the Realtor.
Does it really have running water and an indoor privy? by CNB