How 6th Ave Began And Now It Ends

A family member let me know that he was going to relocate and his cottage house, down town, was going  up for sale. We, at the time, were living about 10 miles out of town in a very small house, and, although small, I had decorated and poured my heart and soul into it and we loved it very much. So we made arrangements and started the process. It was one of those homes that was two blocks from the hospital and centrally located  to everything, Florida State University being one of them. Go Seminoles!!! So our intention was for me to go in, work my magic, live in for 3-5 yr and make enough money to buy property and build and be debt free so we could devote our time to things we felt of value. We were pastoring a small church and decided to return most of the money given to us as long as we could make do with our business income. So we moved in, put our other property up for sale, and ten months later we were still making double payments and, suddenly, the market started to decline (The commercial construction market as well as the housing market) We just had NO earthly idea how far it would decline before the fat lady sang. Thank God our old property did sell and that did relieve some of the pressure, but the amount of work we needed to keep us afloat and the families of the men who helped us, just wasn't there anymore. There was no option, except to pay the men for labor and materials, pay our own material bills and give no thought to our personal belongings, which created  even a bigger monster....credit card debt. Work shifted and, as the profit margins
fell, Kenny knew it was his obligation to step aside and give more of the work directly to the small group of men who had so much skill and ability, however, that meant we would have to recede. We were not, too,
afraid, however, because the television program started and we knew there would soon be enough speaking engagements for us to bridge the gap, it now seems a frightful miscalculation! I find myself reliving these pains because we received a package, around June of 2009, addressed to Mr.& Mrs. Kenneth Edward Dyer. I knew in my heart it was in reference to our house, my home, the one we have, long since, left behind.. This coming up Aug will be the summer 2 yrs ago my Mom came to Tallahassee loaded me and the kids up and brought us to North Carolina. I cant believe it has been over 1 1/2 years. As I sit here I am  45 years old and I feel as though I am 60 and going in the reverse. All I have left is what I could load on a trailer, a trailer we borrowed from one of the  men a trailer we use to own! A house full of stuff with no permanent place to put it. If I can't pay my landlord next month my things will be donated to some second hand store. They are of no value to anyone  but me.  I read the paper, see the news and there are thousands of families in situations just like mine, I use to give my "amens" and "oh I feel your pain and I'm for you," but in honesty I had no earthly idea what those folks where going through., I had no premise to base it on. And you don't always have to have experienced  something to be empathetic but I think for me a light bulb went off when I saw those papers. As Kenny and I sat outside shelling beans and he was "flirting" with me, watching the kids play, (we had cut bamboo early in the day, because my Mom was going to make the kids tepees) so Coleman was sawing his and Bella was using hers for a baton, I thought ,God if we were asked to leave today, leave all my "stuff" and just take our clothes, ALL that I hold valuable in this world (the people I love) would fit in that 79 Bronco. You don't have to own a home to have an investment in it, you can cut greenery from your yard and put it jars on your table and in your bathrooms as a way of service to your home. Take an afternoon and leave the house as it is, it will be there when you return and don't text or talk on the phone and just watch your kids play in the yard, or watch something "they" want to watch. We have NO entertainment money so we had started planning our meal menus together and the kids pick one meal out of the week and then they prepare it. These things are huge to them and they create the home, not the deed of the property.  We Americans sacrificed our families a generation ago, the old-fashioned idea of Mom staying at home, even though it meant fewer "things", was
shamed by the intellectual community, so we pawned our children off to daycare and nannies.  Now, we have a lot more stuff, marriages which have disintegrated, a new and mutated form of self-centeredness, and
we have made any form of values a point of disdain!  The only casualties in this "New Society" are the little creatures(as the scientist call them) who mill about us having our DNA (because they, according to the scientific community, are nothing more than genetic off-shoots).  It was always of interest to me that a society built on the idea
there is no God would be like (even though we have a pristine model in the form of the Old Soviet Union)
well, we are privileged to see it firsthand.  None-the-less, we can return, there is a greater value in our desperate times than we may be aware of.  One thing I am amazed at is the way our children have, yet,
to be driven into a dark, deep depression! They laugh, they play, they sing, all they really need is their parents. As long as we keep our spirits up they seem to be as happy and fulfilled as if we still lived in that beautiful little house at 1014 E. 6th Ave.  No, all Is Not Lost!!!