"Sounds good to me. Were you saying earlier that some of the old money places in the Hunt Valley and Oregon Valley areas are for sale?" You would see some of these places as you drove along the Expressway. Huge rambling horsey places with corrals and fences and ludicrously expensive thoroughbreds. Old money! Did you know the official state sport of Maryland is jousting? This is where you would go to joust!
Andrea laughed. "Anything is for sale if the price is right, but I think the right price might involve the gross national product of a small country to afford them. Certainly not in the budget you gave me!"
"I'm just looking to build a nice house, not a castle."
We drove west on Mount Carmel Road about ten or fifteen minutes. Then she turned right and drove a hundred yards up a side road, and then parked. "This is the first place I wanted you to see.", she announced.
"Where are we? Are we still on Mount Carmel Road or is this Lower Beckleysville Road in Carroll County?", I asked.
"We're still in Baltimore County, just, anyway. It turns into Lower Beckleysville just a bit further on. It's the Hereford school district. What do you think?"
Well, Andrea earned her commission right then and there. We ended up looking at two more places, one more in Carroll County and one back in Baltimore County, but this was the one. It was a bit over 25 acres on the north side of Mount Carmel Road, with about two thirds being an abandoned farm field and the other third a wooded area that had never been cleared. It was on the side of a hill with a very shallow slope, so that it rose at most about fifty feet from Mount Carmel Road to the northern edge of the property. It would be nothing to grade a flat area in the center to put a house and yard, sited to look down onto the road. We were very close to the Carroll County line, maybe a couple of stone's throws away, and closer to Hampstead than to Hereford, but Mount Carmel Road/Lower Beckleysville Road is a major road and was maintained well. After looking at the next two sites, we drove back to this one and I walked the property.
I was sure Andrea could count her commission check as she saw me walking the site and planning things. This was the place, and I told her so. I memorized the location, and we went back to Timonium. I would drive Marilyn out here Tuesday.
Well, no we wouldn't. As I suspected she would, Marilyn found a nice new Toyota at the dealership, a brand new Tercel, just like her old one. I was to go with her tomorrow to buy it. We also had a message from the Lincoln dealership that the Town Car was ready to pick up. The check must have cleared. (That wasn't the message, we were told the 'dealer prep' was finished, but really, everyone knew better.) When I asked Marilyn about the Tercel, she got very excited and told me all about it, and gave me a blow-by-blow description of her day.
"I wonder if we'll be able to pick it up faster if I give them a certified check tomorrow?", I commented to her.
"The salesman wanted to know about what we were doing with the old one and I told him we were giving it to your sister, so he made an appointment for me to leave it with their shop to be looked at."
I was on the verge of making a comment about how they had seen her coming, since repair work is a real profit center, but I stopped, my mouth wide open. "You know, actually, that makes pretty good sense. Let's see what it needs. Suzie won't have any time or money to fix it."
"I know it's overdue for an oil change.", my wife said. "When do you want to get it to her?"
"Let's shoot for Friday. If we do car stuff tomorrow, maybe they can work on it so we can pick it up on Thursday and drive it out there. Did the moving company call and say when they would be able to move us into the town house?"
"Wednesday."
"Perfect. We do car stuff tomorrow, move in on Wednesday, settle in on Thursday and look at some property, and visit Suzie on Friday.", I told her. Marilyn nodded in agreement.
Well, the plan sounded good. It didn't quite work out that way, but it sure sounded good. We ended up spending the entire day Tuesday taking care of the two cars, picking mine up and turning over the Impala, looking at Marilyn's new Tercel, running around town getting a certified check from my new bank, switching all Marilyn's crap from her old car to the new one. It was late in the afternoon we finally got it all sorted out. We had insurance through USAA, a small and not well known outfit with excellent service that is operated for the benefit of military officers. I'd heard of it in glowing terms in my first life; now I took advantage of it, since I qualified.
Wednesday we went over to the town house. The movers were late and Charlie was acting fussy, crying and not eating. Worst, he was pulling and tugging at his right ear, a sure sign of an ear infection! We didn't have a doctor yet. We didn't even have phones in the town house yet, so I had to run around and find a phone in the complex' office to call John and ask for his pediatrician's name, from when his kids were young, but the nurse told me they were booked and suggested taking Charlie to the emergency room. By the time the movers showed, Charlie was screaming. Marilyn would never find the hospital on her own, so I had her go back to the Holiday Inn and try to calm our son down.
I stayed behind at the town house and directed traffic. I knew I was getting some of it wrong, but I wanted the stuff in and the movers gone, so that I could get back with my family and take Charlie to the hospital. I'd just have to move stuff around properly later on. It was a very long day. I got back to the motel, we loaded up a crying baby, and headed to GBMC, where we sat around waiting for a space in the emergency room. It was late when we got out of there, well after dinner. Charlie was on amoxicillin for a week and we stopped at a drive-thru for some food.
Charlie was still fussy on Thursday, which made Marilyn rather short with me. I moved everything in the town house where she wanted it and it still wasn't right. Some of the crap we just stored in the spare bedroom next to Charlie's room. He eventually settled down and took a nap, but we kept moving stuff around all day. Friday we stayed home rather than visit Suzie. Charlie was just too fussy. I went back to the Holiday Inn, packed up everything, and officially checked out, none too soon for my taste.
Amazingly, Charlie was starting to settle down by the time I got back, and Ma Bell showed up to plug in some telephones. I had ordered an 'expedited' install, so the cost was just slightly less than the cost of the property I was looking at. Maybe we could have twins, and I could sell one of them to pay for the phones.
Our first phone call was to Suzie. She had given us a number for her suite, which certainly sounded nicer than the slums that passed for dorm rooms at Rensselaer. It was a Friday afternoon, so the odds were good she didn't have any classes, and we got lucky. Marilyn and I had originally wanted to just drive up there and say, "Surprise!", but we came to the conclusion that was probably a lousy idea. We would have to make sure she had time to take it over to Delaware DMV, and get insurance on it.
That part was a bit of a stickler. I had no qualms about giving her the car, and I knew she'd love to have it. It was a reliable little beast, and perfect for a college kid, yet had no real resale value. Still, Suzie would have to foot the bills, and insurance on a 20 year old wouldn't be cheap. Dad would be happy to pay, but the family couldn't know I had given it to her. Dad couldn't keep it a secret from Mom; Mom would come up with all sorts of reasons she couldn't have it; Hamilton would probably torch it if he knew where it came from.