Below is a guest blog by frequent blogger Fred Carroll. Views expressed are that of the author not necessarily the Insider staff. Dr. Fred has graciously been a guest blogger before, and his last post can be read here:Guest blog: What's the Plan Stan? by Fred Carroll.
When Did A House Become A Home?
by Fred Carroll
A house is not a home, end of story. A "homemaker" can make a home in a house, or make a home out of a house, but a house is not a home on it's own, anymore than a tent, prison cell, or cardboard box that a refrigerator came in is inherently a home. Indeed, what we call "housing" these days is, as far as I can tell, a primary root cause of what we call "Homelessness". Consider, if you will, what are these "houses" that we're all so keen to at least live in if not even own. Well, to start with, if you want to build one of these behemoths, however big or small, it starts with cutting down trees, which are "home" to countless animals; from birds [remember them?] to squirrels to monkeys to bugs. So building a house starts by creating homelessness in the animal kingdom and ends up bringing, as often as not, the poor sucker who stepped up to the plate of home ownership to his knees, lain low by the demon of debt......And why is that? Do otherwise hard working types get lazy after a few years of being homeowners? No, it's not that folks get lazy after they buy a house, it's that they paid way too much for it! A bear digs for half a day and has a home for the Winter, a bird works for three days to create a home, a bunch of elk just stand there, and they're home! But a human who pays one hundred thousand dollars for a house and earns fifty thousand dollars per year worked for TWO YEARS to "create a home", and of course that calculation implies "living for free" for those two years-impossible, of course. And that is just the beginning of the cost of the idiot rectangle.....there's The Taxes, the maintenance, the water and gas and electricity, and garbage pick up without which this thing is worse than useless. So WHY, pray tell, do we call these stupid boxes that most of us live in "HOMES"?
Vexed and perplexed, Fred Carroll
Many of Carroll's sketches are on display at the Buttonwood Tree on Main Street.
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It is a grave concern of mine that younger adults just coming into the job market cannot afford to by houses, and our economy cannot afford for them not to.
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