You're a lucky man Willy! My grandparents bought a place in the mountains of North Carolina when I was a kid and I fell 100% in love with the place. It was to be their retirement home once my grandfather retired. He put a ton of work into the place, but they did the snowbird routine while he was still working. Every summer, I'd come home on the last day of school and their old Chrysler Town 'n Country station wagon would be parked in the driveway. I'd grab my suitcase, throw it in the back of the car and the three of us would head for N.C. I spent EVERY summer with them and they'd bring me back home a couple days before school would start back up. When I was entering the 2nd grade, I flat didn't want to leave, so I started school up there. Once I completed the first semester, we came back to Florida and I finished school here. My grandfather was going to retire when he reached 65 yrs. old, but had a massive heart attack just a few months before his 65th birthday. I was 12 years old and at that point and I made up my mind right then that I was going to retire the MINUTE I was eligible for Social Security. No waiting for a higher pay-out, as that day may never arrive.

My grandmother eventually ended up staying in that house permanently as she got to the point the travel back and forth was too much for her. I drove up to see her over the Labor Day weekend in 1977. She told me she knew she wasn't going to be around much longer and she wanted me to have that old place. I knew there was no way I could live there as I was married and had just gotten out of the military 2 years prior. I was building my career and saw no way I could make a living up there, or even afford to keep the place and live elsewhere. She passed away 3-months later. The family sold the place off and split the money between the 7 kids.

I went up to the old homestead a few years back and visited with the current owners. She is a college professor at the local college (Western Carolina Univ) and he works out of the house with his accounting business. They opened the place up to me and of course, had all sorts of questions about how things USED to be. TBH, nothing much has changed. The kitchen was upgraded and the old wood stove was gone. (one of my first chores every day was to get the wood stove fired up, then head up to the hen house to release the chickens and collect the eggs for breakfast) I just sat out on the porch overlooking the river for a while and could feel my eyes getting pretty moist thinking about what "could" have been if I'd been a bit more stable and established when I was 25 years old.