Meet some interesting people in my line of work. Online from all over.
Last night before closing up the property listing in Maine workshop, the last call for real estate came in from around the world. From Queensland, Australia to pinpoint the location a few clicks away.
The voice, from a man originally from Pennsylvania gave me the order for the property listing kitchen. (Ding Ding)
Shared his wish list with number one to be away from people. Where he can heat with wood. Everything around him paid for, not doing debt. And using a generator if no land line juice available suits him just fine. His wife too who is a native of Australia. She being described as wiry, feisty, vertically challenged. For two years before he entered the picture, she had lived in the outback, the bush where the generator was all she wrote. Building her house from ground up all by her lonesome. Move over Bob Vila. Craftsmen tools may be signing on a new spokesperson.
The email, contact information exchanged. We ran the drill of one by one what he wants. The does not need no thank you helpings of business check off list thoroughly thrashed out too. Then I had to ask. How did you get to that far corner of the World from Australia. Pause. It’s a long story so thought no blog post fodder train of inspiration would be coming round round the mountain. But it did. There is always a woman involved.
Long story short, Frank did two tours of duty in Vietnam working for Uncle Sam in an unpopular war he did not cause.
But a fight he did not walk away from, in back to back bouts in the rice paddy jungle ring. In 1970 while the shooting and shelling were still going on, he stepped up to the counter to take his allotted rest and relaxation. To hop across the puddle to Australia, where he met Marilyn in Sydney. The spark connection between the pair happened. But so did life’s obligations. The “back to work GI Joe” from Vietnam wake up call. Signalling the R & R was over. Ten hut, not more at ease soldier away from the barracks.
So fast forward to back in the states with Frank and swinging a carpenter’s hammer. Running a planer. Making piles of sawdust for a living. Holding down a position in a noble profession, trade of crafting furniture. Creating custom kitchen cabinets. Far safer than the Vietnam 9-5 earlier rat race job. For thirty eight years before he and Marilyn met again. He started looking for her. She had always wondered, not forgotten him. About the same time. Like the song “somewhere out there” sang by a mouse with only the moon to share the sad heart felt tune. Both did their part for the long distance reunion.
Frank had to dig, with bits and pieces from contacting friends in the APB of a MIA. For someone that he still felt the L-O-V-E light beacon shining.
With help of a personal GPS like big brother the Internet. Not using a private eye or a short wave radio, writing letters like the black and white movie love stories. He found her, she found him. He moved to her native Australia. Married a local, low to the ground, not showing up on radar green screen sweeps. Like low flying B-52’s in Aroostook County back when Loriing Air Force Base was in it’s hay day. The couple joined after nearly four decades of being apart.
Tow tickets to paradise, bought for Maine on the silver bird and the very long flight. Lots of standing up by the bathroom and stretching your legs between naps, peanuts, inflight movies. Will be in Maine with his wife and her green card paperwork all neat and sweetly typed out, filled in for the December 30th touch down. His and his bride’s eye on 53 acres in Haynesville Maine with a one bedroom home, attached double garage that would come in dead last for all time best home locations for trick or treaters.
Dead end road, not a neighbor in sight and just the way the two liked what they saw, heard in the video. Rewound, rewatched, studied.
They’ve already been to the place before they get here. In, around the home and land for sale in Haynesville Maine. I’m going to educate him about the off the beaten path place with all the supposed song buried truck driver mile markers in Haynesville Maine that Dick Curless crooned about wearing an eye patch.
The blue and green spinning marble is a much smaller place with a faster pace. And why many just want to step off that merry go round. Find their small private, no population space on that marble. I’m going to help Frank and Marilyn and learn a lot about Australia in the process without making the leap to see it first hand. Or maybe I will after they describe what it is like cooking on the Barbie, watching kangaroo jump, pouch the kids which is about the extent of my knowledge watching television.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@moersrealty.com