A sad discovery

A friend sent me a web link - http://www.vpike.com/

You can go to this site, punch in any address and it will show a picture of that address and you can move the mouse around to get a 360 degree angle. I played around with different addresses - it is not 100% accurate. However, I typed in the address of the house my father built in the early 1950's on 62nd Avenue in Pensacola, Florida and where we lived for a number of years. It is no longer there. I used the 360 degree tool to make sure this was the same place. . . it was.

It was a sad moment in my life to find that home is no longer there. As a child of 5 years old, I watched my father draw the blueprints for that simple little 2 bedroom ranch style concrete block home. I would sit on the floor next to where he was drawing up the plans and draw my own blueprints! He taught me how to read blueprints, a skill that I have carried with me ever since. When I was in real estate in the late 90's, early 2000's, I could not understand why some otherwise intelligent adults, could not read blueprints!

Until the day he died, my father was proud of that modest little home. He not only designed it, drew the blueprints himeself, but he built the home with his own hands. I remember playing on the concrete subfloor of the house while he was laying the blocks and putting up the studs.

I last saw the home about 3 years ago on a trip to Pensacola. It was old and had not been maintained well since we moved away in 1962.