I’m feeling real good about this deal on the house. I don’t make my mind up quickly. I’m one of those who mull it over, think about the consequences, about implications, about side effects, toss ’em all around, and then make up your mind. In the old days when I had to attend business meetings I would invariably sit quietly through most of the meeting trying to figure out the way to put to bed forever the first item on the agenda — and then about the time the meeting was ready to end I’d go back to that first item and raise the right questions so we could at least knock on item off the next agenda. I always had people angry at me for regressing; but they couldn’t argue with results. The problem was that too many of the attendants didn’t think the problem through completely enough. And thought takes time.
But this is a good deal. Peg and I have put a lot of time and money into the school, the price is better than fair — in some ways the buyer is getting one heck of a deal. We are getting a fair price considering the market. If we were selling at a different time in history we could probably get a lot more — but for this market I’m satisfied that we’re not getting cheated and the buyer’s not getting cheated either.
Like any building that is 89 yrs old there are and will always be little things that could be done to make it better, to update it a little more, to change something, or do it differently. But the building is sound. We have corrected almost all of the problems that we knew about when we moved in.
On the other side of the coin is the fact that we get to move on with our life. We’re ready; I’m not sure I could have said that honestly on the day the house went onto the market, but I can now. For three months we have not allowed ourselves to think about the future — we had not control over what would happen when. But now that we have a deadline it “pays” to make plans.
The buyers are the right people for this wonderful old school. They were the most attentive, they have done other old-building renewals: I feel confident that they will treat the building with respect. I’m glad they are the ones to get her. She’s a great old building, and deserves a caring and thoughtful family.
From the Far Side of '70 
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