Homes I've Lived In

1962-1966: Watertown NY
Ranch House

I spent my first years in a little ranch house. It was surely nothing special. Although we moved out just after I had turned 4, I do have a fair amount of memories from that first house.

1966-1980: Watertown NY
Victorian House

After my little brother was born we upgraded to this wonderful Victorian house. It was an absolutely fabulous house to group up in. It had a grand staircase, a formal dining room with a crystal chandelier, a full basement, and a humungous attic. My father put a 6' slate pool table in one of the downstairs rooms. For a Republican, he was pretty cool. I had my own bedroom and bathroom, although I had to share the latter when we had overnight guests. There wasn't much of a yard, but there was an old carriage house we could play in. It was like a 2-story, 8 room club house. I cherish my memories of that place.

1980-1982: Geneva NY
Durfee Hall, Hobart College

I spent my freshman year in Durfee Hall at Hobart College. I had an assigned roommate. He had been in boarding schools practically all his life. But dorm living was new for me. The biggest issue I had with it was shared showers. I'd gotten boners in the shower every morning since I'd hit puberty. It was a matter of great stress for me.

My sophomore year I was to live in a single in a campus house, but it got torn down over the Summer. They stuck me back in Durfee Hall. I was supposed to have another assigned roommate, but he never showed up. So I had a large double to myself that whole year.

1982-1983 - Potsdam NY
Bowman Hall, SUNY Potsdam

When I transferred to SUNY Potsdam, I got stuck in a triple. It was only a double-sized room, but three of us were crammed in there. My roommates were basketball players. They were pretty cool, actually. After a few weeks I got de-tripled into another room in the same dorm. My new roommate was nice enough, but he didn't really have his shit together. He'd stay up all night every night playing cards with underclassmen. I think he failed out after that semester.

1983-1986: Potsdam NY
Psi Phi Delta Chapter House

After I was inducted into the fraternity, I moved into the chapter house the very next semester. I stayed there until I graduated. The final two years I had a single up on the 3rd floor. I really hated moving out of that house.

1986: Washington DC
Boarding House

When I moved down to Wasthington DC after graduation I got a room in a boarding house (3706 Corey Place NW). It was a pretty nice place, but my room was tiny and I had to share the kitchen with the other residents. It wasn't the best of situations. But after just a few months I moved back North.

1986-1987: Watertown NY
Mom & Dad's New House

When I left Washington I had to move back in with my parents. By now they'd sold that wonderful old Victorian and bought a much smaller and newer house in the doctor/lawyer neighborhood. There was nothing wrong with it, really, but it so paled in comparison to the Victorian that I didn't like it much. It also wasn't a lot of fun living back with the folks after having been on my own.

1987: Syracuse NY
Apartment House

Once I finally found a job I got my own apartment for the first time in my life. It was kind of a dump, but it suited me just fine. The apartment spanned the downstairs of the house, so I was able to get some cross-ventilation going on in the Summer. While the place was okay, I had a sketchy biker couple living in the apartment behind me, and a single mother living upstairs who was constantly screaming at her unruly kids. After a year I decided to move out.

1988: Baldwinsville NY
Shared Ranch House

A High School friend of mine was living in a house on the outskirts of town. I moved in with him and his friends. They ran a tight ship. There were lots of house rules, and rather stern peer pressure if they were violated. But it worked out really well, actually. There were well-defined borders and we got along very smoothly.

1988-1989: Syracuse NY
Shared House

I decided to reunite with some of my fellow fraternity alumni. We rented a whole big house on the East side of town. The house was great, but where my previous residence had strict rules, this situation was complete anarchy. I tried to implement some rules, but I was ignored. Still, it was a fun place to live. When other fraternity members were in town they always hung out at our place. We also had a legendary New Years Eve part. But after a year we all went our separate ways. As things were winding down one of my roommates bought a pool table with plans on taking it with him to his next residence. We set it up in the garage. It was at that time that one of our neighbors reported us as running an illegal boarding house. Since we were always running around with fraternity shirts on, I think they thought we were running a frat house. And the pool table was apparently the final straw. The irony was we were just getting ready to move out. By the time the building inspector showed up, we'd moved all our stuff out. He checked out a supposed boarding house that was totally empty.

1989-1991: Ithaca NY
Apartment House

When I moved to Ithaca I got an apartment with another one of my fraternity brothers. What a mistake. This guy was a passive-aggressive nightmare. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

1991-1994: Ithaca NY
Trailer Park

When the lease was up on the apartment, I had a dickens of a time finding another place. I was actually looking for a mobile home trailer to live in, but couldn't find one. I answered an ad for an apartment to rent, and it turned out to be a trailer after all. It was in a well-run park just off the Cornell campus. I was off on one end of the park, almost entirely by myself. It was more like living in an RV park than a trailer park. I had no issues with the stigma of living in a trailer. Not at all. Truth be told I absolutely loved it. It was the first time I had a place to myself since my first apartment in Syracuse, and the first time ever that I had a whole structure to myself, such as it was. It was dirt cheap, and I was able to save up a lot of money.

1994-Present: Ithaca NY
Farm House & Private Estate

After living in the trailer for a couple years I decided it was time to buy a house. Really the only thing that had been holding me back was deciding that I liked Ithaca enough to warrent laying down roots. But I did. After a pretty brief search, I settled on a nice property out in the country. The house wasn't much to speak of, but it had a number of out-buildings, and the surrounding land was fantastic. I lived there for several years before I did much of anything, but since then I've been very slowly tailoring the place to my needs.

2004: Palm Springs CA
1-Story House

In 2004 I spent a few months in Palm Springs. I had a short-term rental in what is known as the Movie Colony. It was a nice little house with its own pool in a quiet neighborhood. The plan was that this would become my Winter residence, and I'd live at my Ithaca house in the Summers, but it didn't work out. I'm back to my Ithaca house full time.

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