Back home in Brooklyn, my mother was still living in the house where my sister and I grew up. Her sister, my aunt, was in the upstairs apartment, where I had lived on two separate occasions. We visited a couple of times, and it was a trip to go upstairs, see my aunt and my old apartment. This was the place where I was single for a while, then married for a time and single again. It's where I had many, many fond memories.

    My mom was getting up there in years. Eventually she had some health issues and had to go to the hospital for surgery. I went back to N.Y. and spent some time with her before, during, and after the surgery. It looked like she was going to be OK, but she could no longer be on her own. So she had to move into assisted living, and my aunt had to move back in with her daughter. My mother always loved her independence. I think the loss of it didn’t sit well with her. Sadly, she passed way in 2008 at the age of (almost) 89.

    As a result, my sister and I were now the owners of the house where we were raised. As I mentioned earlier, the area had changed, however. What was once the lower-middle-class Norman Rockwell type of neighborhood of our youth, was now a decidedly yuppie and desirable area of Brooklyn. It used to take me less than 15 minutes to get into Manhattan by subway. I believe, to borrow my phrase from an earlier chapter, instead of being GU (geographically undesirable), this house was definitely GD (geographically desirable).

    With my sister married and living in New Jersey and me living in California, however, it wound up for a time to be an empty house. My parents had bought it in 1953, as I stated before, and I think it cost them somewhere in the neighborhood of 10K. I did a little check on Zillow, and that amount now wouldn’t have even covered a down payment. Meanwhile, it was 2008, the housing bubble was in the midst of popping, and we needed to do something. Besides the fact that I was living so far away, I was also just starting to get busy with my websites, so it wasn't easy to get back.

    Unfortunately, the burden of trying to find a buyer and fixing it up (and it needed fixing) fell to my sister and her husband who, thankfully, was (and still is, I suppose) a handy guy. It took a while, but eventually we got it sold. We might have lost a little bit of revenue, had we sold it earlier, but my sister and I still each pocketed a nice piece of change, as they say.

    The person who bought the house went about making numerous changes, as they were going to resell it. When I saw it on the market again, the interior had been completely renovated. My upstairs apartment looked nothing like I remembered. What went on inside there, however, will not be soon forgotten.

    I have since spoken with the person who moved into the house. We kind of made tentative plans for me to visit. It has been over ten years, though, and I haven’t been back. Sadly, it looks like that might not happen anytime in the near future.

    Oh well. As I said, I have my memories.