February 17, 2020: 1812 Alabama Street, 1984-86

After returning in May 1983 from a one-year visiting position at the University of Wyoming, I moved into a tiny, one-bedroom, two-floor apartment on Lawrence's east side, one of the older, poorer, kind of run down parts of town. Rent was cheap and it was temporary. It was not student housing nor was it a student neighborhood. Just real people, very few of whom I met. My neighbors out the back door were Rob and Penny Fisher. I watched a lot of Hill Street Blues with them in the year I spent there. For more, check this earlier post.

From 1346 New Jersey, I lived next at 1812 Alabama (photo at left, taken 2018; garage on the left has been converted to a room). Through a realtor friend, I learned that one of the big contractors in Lawrence owned a lot, a lot where he had lived as a student. The home was a tear down and he wanted to build a new place, but most of his clientele had him build much bigger homes. In 1984, 1812 Alabama was going to be a $65,000 project. My first house in Lawrence, 2500 Montana, had cost $36,500. So this was a significant upgrade. By coincidence, when I moved on to Chapel Hill in the summer of 1986, just two years after I built 1812 Alabama, I found a home in Chapel Hill that was identical to 1812 Alabama in most respects, only it cost $180,000. NOTE: I rented an apartment for my short stay in Chapel Hill, from August to December 1986.

As for 1812 Alabama in 1984, the contractor finished the house while I was leading a group of students in summer stuffy at Manchester. I was totally unenvied in then project, knew nothing about the process, never inspected details beyond a blueprint prior to construction, and came home in August 1984 to a finished home. The builder -- can't recall his name -- has painted per my wishes a slightly lighter gray than the home was painted here in 2018, and he had painted the trim a sort of dark red-like/maroon color that he was not happy with from the start. Now done, he asked if he could change the trim to something less dramatic -- fro no additional cost -- and I agreed and he did.

In its first life, 1812 Alabama had a garage at the end of the driveway, now obviously repurposed as a room. The original design was a three bedroom, two bath home. The lawn was nothing more than first and some seeds scatted the day I moved in. I spent a month nurturing the lawn; it came out quite well. NOTE: Today, placing sod at our new Wisconsin home, I note the best advice as to the best fertilizer for any lawn -- water. For new sod, lots and lots of it.

I described much of the first nine months of life at 1812 in the above-mentioned post about 1346 New Jersey, primarily because my New Jersey summer tenants lived with me at 1812 for the 1984-85 school year. I'll leave that link to you to peruse if you are curious.

The best thing about 1812 Alabama was its proximity to campus, basically a block and a half from the edge of campus and probably less than half a mile to my office. Driving was out of the question, so I decided on a moped, a small one that I could park in the bike racks around Summerfield Hall. I rarely ventured much further on the moped. I guess 30 MPH would have been pushing its limits, tough even for the slower, surface, city streets of Lawrence. That experiment ended when I was hit on the way to Mass one Sunday morning, causing me to perform a 360 degree flip, where I landed on my butt in the main road of the campus, near the student center. I let the moped dealer/repair shop just take and keep the moped. I never rode one again.