The House on Laurie Street, Pt. 1

When I last wrote about the house, Sissy, our realtor, and I were coming up with various scenarios in terms of selling it and the property. As you know if you read that post, our bitchy dream was to put in a trailer court, special for the Coach and his wife. However, as the property was by then in the city limits (when my grandparents bought it, it was still in the county), no trailer court was allowed.

Let me stop and clarify: our family's relationship with the Coach and his wife was "complicated," to put it mildly. (And for my E TN readers, this Coach was eventually fired from A Large University and given a $6 million severance package, just in case you were wondering to whom I was referring.)

When they became neighbors, my parents were embroiled in a battle with the city: the city was planning to build a road right through the middle of their property, through the fields and Mom's spring, as an exit road from the newly built school on the hill. This was killing Daddy. And they were going to lose the fight. Then, lo and behold, the Coach bought the property behind them, which included land through which the road was to go, and suddenly, all plans to build a road were off.

The Coach and his family built a home and moved in and soon bought the field behind them. The city planted a hundred or more Cedars by the road above this piece of land so they would have privacy from the traffic on the road and the greenway that bordered their property.

Remember: The Coach and his wife were IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

(One time during a visit not long after the Coach and his Wife had moved in, Mom shared a newspaper article that was an interview with the wife. In it, she lamented how challenging it was, how much responsibility it was, to be a Celebrity in a Small Town.)

A few years later, my uncle sold them the 13 acres (once part of The Farm) adjacent to their property for a song. Soon thereafter, the Wife built an "office" on the property, a 2,000+ square foot "barn." I guess she needed a place from which she could organize all her charity work for The Little People.

Oh, have I mentioned that The Coach and his wife were Good Neighbors over the years, sending cards and fruit baskets for the holidays, stopping by for visits, etc.? They even visited Daddy in the hospital and nursing home.

But they had a plan, you see. All that was left to complete their Kingdom was the 7 acres on which sat The House on Laurie Street. And we knew it.

Fortunately for us, they mistook Daddy's delight at having a Big Football Coach's family as neighbors for stupidity. They thought we were Country Bumpkins. Boy, were they in for a surprise.