East Hartland

I was pretty well set on moving out of Lake Garda. For a while we considered moving to Simsbury, and there was a development there on a high hill we were attracted to. It had a back road down the hill from there called "The Garret Stairs", which I considered might be good in case of fire, as the place was mostly all woods. We had our eye on a building lot there, and we even bought and planted a mountain laural bush on it. But once we considered the overall cost, etc., we came to the conclusion that it was not for us.

So we considered East Hartland more seriously, in spite of the fact that it really wasn't that much closer to work. I had a realtor take me to see several places there. He drove very fast up Old Town Road to a place I think just past Pell Hill Road. I think he drove real fast hoping I wouldn't see the "For Sale by Owner" sign that Arthur Aasland had out in front of his place. The realtor also took me up the road past Fisher's place, to a very high place on the left (west) side of the road. But the place was terribly run down, and I visualized it would take a fortune to bring it into proper shape.

So later, by myself, I went back to Arthur Aasland's place, and we wound up purchasing it directly from him. At the same time I believe we tried unsuccessfully to sell our place at Lake Garda. After moving to our new place in East Hartland, we tried to rent out the place at Lake Garda. It was my first experience in renting. I tried to be careful, and asked for references. One lady originally from Tennessee with a large family wanted to rent, so I asked for references, and she gave one. I called the party up, I think it was a physician in Tennessee, and he was surprised that she had given him as reference. He said that she paid the rent regularly, and that was no problem, but that basically, she and her family just plain ruined the place!

So I didn't rent to her. There was another couple that was interested, and they sounded quite promising, but I don't remember anything about references. If there were, they apparently passed muster. So we rented to them. They asked and got permission from us to paint the place inside. (There went Marjorie's art work). But we did what we had to do. I may have gotten the fiirst month or two's rent, but after that it was amazing the stories I got over the phone from our tenants: "Oh, my mistake, I sent the check to East Hartland, Massachusetts by mistake. Don't worry, I'll correct it right away." Every month something, and often I had to personally go back down there to collect. With all the effort, I often felt that I personally earned the rent money just trying to collect it. But they kept the place neat as a pin.

Based on my expereience with the above two samples of renters, it seemed like there were two kinds: one kind pays rent right on the spot but wrecks the joint; the other kind keeps the place neat and clean, but it's like pulling teeth to collect the rent. Oh, well, that was just my experience at that point.

We moved to East Hartland just as Eisenhower was running for a second term against Adlai Stevenson. The air was much clearer in Hartland than it was at Lake Garda. East Hartland was 1,192 feet above sea level, compared to Simsbury, which I think was about 300 feet. They say that for every 1,000 feet of altitude is the weather equivalent of going 200 miles further North. In the process of checking out East Hartland, I knocked on a number of doors in town, asking a few questions. At the younger Parmalee's place they advised me that yes, it is cooler here, "all year round".

The place we bought from Arthur Aasland was actually built by Ted Aagre, who lived in the next place towards the center of town, on the same side of the road.

More of this later, I need to quit now.