Life Is Good

[ML@Coyote]

It's been a little over six months since we moved from Southern California to South Carolina. Best decision we ever made. moving to the south. The people here are friendlier. The weather is much better than advertised. Haven't seen any racism. Gas is a lot cheaper. We now live on five acres of grass and trees. Instead of screaming kids and loud TVs at night, we hear whip-poor-wills and crickets. People don't honk their horns and tailgate when you drive the speed limit. A traffic jam is waiting behind three cars at a signal. Two lane country roads will get you everywhere you need to go. They sell lawn mowers and tractors everywhere, even in furniture stores. Big news in our neighborhood last month was a sighting of some feral pigs. Haven't seen any graffiti on anything, and I got my hair cut for fifteen bucks. Our house is bigger, and our electrical bill is a third of what it was. Did I mention that the people are friendlier? People I've met for the first time here are friendlier than most of my longtime California friends. I was born and raised in California, and lived there for sixty three years. I used to think California was the center of the universe, but now you couldn't get me to move back to that hell hole for all the money in the world.

ML

[Derron]

Nice ML, thanks for the update. Always great when you find a better location to reside that reduces lifes little stressors.

[Sirfindafold]

sigh.

[Kierland]

It's been a little over six weeks since we moved from the Central Coast of California to Gold Country in the foothills outside of Sacramento. Best decision we ever made. moving to the foothills. The people here are friendlier. The weather is much better than advertised, but we still need to see a winter. Haven't seen any racism. Gas is a lot cheaper. We now live on 1/5 acre of grass and trees next to 1,000’s of acres of open land. Instead of screaming kids and loud TVs at night, we hear Whistling trees and crickets. People don't honk their horns and tailgate when you drive the speed limit. A traffic jam is waiting behind three cars at a signal. Two lane country roads will get you everywhere you need to go. They sell lawn mowers and tractors everywhere, even in furniture stores. Big news in our neighborhood last week was The Amador tomato festival. Haven't seen any graffiti on anything, and I got my kids new shoes for ten bucks. Our house is bigger, although our electrical bill is a about what it was before. Did I mention that the people are friendlier? People I've met for the first time here are friendlier than most of my longtime Central Coast friends. I was raised on the Central Coast, and lived there for 49 years. I used to think It was the center of the universe, but now you couldn't get me to move back to that hell hole for Less than a mil.

TVO

[Wolfman]

Hey ML---pumping that El Cheapo gas? South Carolina was almost always to lowest cost per gallon when I used to do the north-south roadies.
We moved from CNY to SW FL in 2001 and never regretted it, hurricanes notwithstanding.
Enjoy. Life is indeed good.

[smackaholic]

Glad to hear it , ML.

Have you attended any cross burning or lynchings yet?

I moved back to Connecticut from Nashville 20 years ago and regret it every day.


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[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

[Screw_Michigan]

Glad to hear it , ML.

Have you attended any cross burning or lynchings yet?

I moved back to Connecticut from Nashville 20 years ago and regret it every day.

Why, because you missed out on the cross burnings and lynchings?

[ML@Coyote]

Ten o’clock at night. It's dark outside. The wife is out at a Labor Day party at the clubhouse with our neighbors. I didn’t feel like going. I opted to stay home and watch a Braves game that I recorded last week. The dog is asleep on the floor, and there are two cats sleeping on the couch near me. Freddie Freeman steps up to bat, and the doorbell rings. I get up to answer the door, and when I open it, imagine my surprise. There are thirty to forty neighbors standing in my front yard. My wife is with them.

“Come on,” a man says. “You’re coming with us.” I say, “I’m hardly dressed for a party, and the man tells me not to worry. “We brought along your clothes for you,” he says. Everybody laughs when he says this, and I’m kind of wondering what’s so funny. Then someone hands him two white robes and a pair of hoods. “Put these on,” he says to me. He hands me one of the robes and a hood and begins to put on the other one. “Are you serious?” I ask, and he just stares at me like I’m speaking Chinese.

Everyone is now climbing into their robes and putting their hoods on their heads. I hesitate, but then I put mine on. Every since I was a kid, I’ve never been that good at handling peer pressure. A man named Screwy is now standing on a crate and barking orders to the others. “Goob, did you bring the matches? Marty, did you bring the gas? 88, did you bring the cross? Mikey, you’ve got your hood on backwards again. Spray, put down that hot dog. You’re getting mustard drippings all over the front of your robe. And no, Holic, you can’t cut the sleeves off.

This is so weird. There is a small fleet of Ford F-250s in the street, and suddenly all of us are piling into the trucks. Everyone is singing Sweet Home Alabama. The engines fire up, and we’re off and running. Screwy is sitting next to me in the front seat of 88's truck, and he offers me a cigarette. I take it, and he give me a light. “But I thought…” I start to say. “Oh, Democrats are the real racists,” he says. “But then so are you Republicans. Hell, we’re all a bunch of racists. Wake up, Coyote, every single one of us is a bloody racist, ha, ha, ha!”

“Wake up!” he says. “Wake up, wake up!” Someone is shaking my arm, and I open my eyes. I’m on the couch with the two sleeping cats, and my wife is standing over me, shaking my arm. Our dog is now standing, watching us. “Wake up you idiot,” she says. “I’m back from the party.” I look at the TV, and the Braves are losing, and I have no idea what happened. “You should’ve come with me,” my wife says. “I met a lot of nice people. You're not going to meet any people sitting around here on the couch snoozing and watching baseball.”

"You're standing in front of the TV," I say. "Can you move to the side a little."

[Derron]

Rack the short story. Been way too long since we have heard one of those.

[smackaholic]

Glad to hear it , ML.

Have you attended any cross burning or lynchings yet?

I moved back to Connecticut from Nashville 20 years ago and regret it every day.

Why, because you missed out on the cross burnings and lynchings?

You ever been to an U&R cross burning? A complete chinese fire drill. And don't even think about it without pulling permits. Fukking fire marshall nazi will be all over you.

I miss the people. I miss plentiful good 'que. But most of all, I miss 3 digit property taxes on a decent home. It's been 20+ years, so I suspect the average 3 br 2 bath spread's property taxes have crept into the 4 digit range, but not by a lot. My hovel in Ct is right around 5 grand. So even though the mortgage is paid of, it's like I still have a dollar a month mortgage.

'Yote, what are you paying a year in property taxes?

[Mikey]

I opted to stay home and watch a Braves game that I recorded last week.

You recorded a baseball game?

[ML@Coyote]

'Yote, what are you paying a year in property taxes?

Don't know about prop taxes yet. I just built the house and haven't received a bill since I built it. But our elect bill is about a third of what we were paying in Calif, and we're now living in a much bigger house. Water comes out of a well, so no more $100/mo water bill. Gas about the same. Internet, phone, and TV about the same. HOA about $300 less per year. House insurance is about a third of what we were paying in Calif because of high fire risk where we lived. The Holy Fire started about ten miles from our old house. I haven't added everything up yet, but we're definitely paying a lot less...for a much better quality of life.

[ML@Coyote]

I opted to stay home and watch a Braves game that I recorded last week.

You recorded a baseball game?

I record everything I watch. Fast forward through all the commercials. Rewind when I doze off. Pause when the wife is talking. I have watched much real time TV for years.