Cracked House

Cracked House


"Hey, W-Dirt!" There he is. "Do you want to buy that house we looked at the other day?

"You mean the cracked house?"

"Hmmm, yeah. The cracked house."

"Okay! But it's too big. We can't bring it home with us."

"Well, thank goodness for that, because we are moving to it. And closer to the beach too. Isn't that fun?"

"Yeah!"

That cracked house originally sold for 40 grand back in '51. The sad reality is that a mere 10 years ago it was worth 200,000. And now we're bidding 428 on it. It used to be a blue collar working class neighborhood. A mere three miles from the upper-middle South Redondo where I grew up. If you consider the current home costs in the South Bay of LA, it is now a middle-middle-class area. Slowly the old timers that moved in decades past, are trickling out, and newer families with higher incomes are moving in, tearing down, and re-building. Within another decade or so, this area of Torrance will be mostly revitalized by the wealthy.

Near the beach in LA, like so many other neighborhoods, the inflation rate of homes is significantly higher than the rest of the u.s. economy. Sure there was a bubble due to irregular and corrupt loan processes, but that bubble has mostly burst. Without any returning to normal in sight. Even in spite of the banks that are artificially keeping the prices high by not emptying the foreclosed homes to the market. But even before the massive corruption took place, the home market was articifiaclly inflated compared to income levels. But here, near the beach, the prices will never plumit the way so many other neighborhoods have. There will always be rich people willing to spend good money on a house near the beach, so the prices will always remain high here. And most of Torrance, being merely a couple miles inland, although quite less than South Redondo or Hermosa and other local beach cities, has still maintained a higher price in the western part of Torrance because of that. So what do we do? We have a hundred grand for a down payment. The wife is about to lose her mind if she wastes one more months rent paying for someone elses mortage. And damnit, we don't have a backyard or a garage even though we are renting a house. So we checked out this house..... And it's nearly a hundred grand less than the other houses on the street. Maybe that's why my boy calls it the cracked house.

"Your mom is the smartest person on the planet. She brings us home more money than we know how to spend."

"Really?

"Yep. Faster than we can spend it. That's why we decided to take it all and buy this house."

"All of it?"

"Yep. just about all of it."

"You know what W-Dirt? I think the only Christmas present we are getting this year is that cracked house. Because come Dec 23, we will own it and all it's cracks."

Made In Japan

Made In Japan

What's that say Poppa?" The boy asked me as he pointed at the backside of his new extrra large bright red beach shovel.

"Let's see. Says, Made In Japan."

"Oh."

-Later that day-

While grinding playdoh into the dining room chair cushion, the boy flips over his Spiderman plate and asks me, "What's that say Jay?"

"It says Zak!."

"Oh. What does that one say Jay?"

"Made In Japan."

"That what it's called?" He asked.

"Sure. Yep."

The following day while playing with Lacey's toys he flips one over and sees more text. "What does this say Jay?"

"Well, that one says Made In Japan too." I said with a sigh. He is begining to call his toys 'Made In Japan'. As if that is their official name. We must have gone over a dozen toys and plastic plates and cups this week, all saying Made In Jap Land on the back.

He finally asked me what Made In Japan means.

"Well. It was made there, in the land of Japan."

"Oh."

"Yeah, by little kids just like you."

"Oh. Like me?"

"Yep. and they made just enough money to buy some gum from the gumball machine at Pat And Oscars."

Oh how exciting this was too him. "Can I make one too? I want a red gumball. A red one!" It's his favorite color you know.

"Well, listen close buddy. When Obama is kicked out of office, the new administration just might bring the tax rate back down, then they may give companies incentives, such as tax brakes, to bring their business back to the US. So they might come back home and make their stuff here. Then you can make one. Ok?"

'Ok! Ok! Reeeeeeeeeeddddddd gggggguuuuuuuummmm baaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllssssssssss!" Was shouted around the house for the rest of the day.