Two Turtles Singing and Jon's Other Real Estate Ventures

Conventional wisdom as we were reassigned from Vietnam to the D.C. area in January 1972, was that purchasing one's housing was a good idea (& a good investment).

After moving into the Wagon Wheel Motel on Rt 1 (south of the beltway), I contacted a realtor (retired Adjutant General, I think), and asked him what he could do for us. He consulted his "computer" (card file), and said that Dale City looked like the place (many miles south off of Interstate 95). I asked him to put us back through the "computer" again and find something closer to where I'd be working. He showed us some, and we ended up buying a small brick "rancher" in a WWII subdivision called Hybla Valley. The streets were named after airplanes, and we were on "Fordson' Road." It was within walking distance from the Wagon Wheel Motel.

We bought it from a family by the name of Studley. When we looked at the house, there was a motorcycle parked in what would become the dining room. It had a full basement, which flooded by several inches during Hurricane Agnes.

Over time, we came to call it "The Humble Home."

A couple of years later when I was sent to Leavenworth (the school, not the prison), we sold The Humble Home, turned over my Veteran's mortgage to the buyer (another veteran), and carried a second mortgage on the difference between purchase & sale price - about 10K.

Returning from Leavenworth & Germany, four years later, we bought a better house, and on my retirement, sold it, and, again, made a profit (& carried a second).

Returning to the east coast after living on the McKenzie river in Oregon for 13 months, we purchased (in haste) a "winter water view - when the leaves are off the trees" house, which we eventually named "Sows Ear," and I went to work at the Wood & Coal Company as a 49% owner.

The property we developed in Dorchester County, we named "Two Turtles Singing." (Something about....lo in the Spring....yada, yada, - have to ask Barbara.) When we sold Two Turtles, after several years of sweat equity, we became the banker again, and carried the 1st mortgage (for 11 years).

Moving across the Bay, we started to call the place we bought "The Turnip Patch." Later it became "Mole End." (Again, something to do with a poem). Selling it, we transferred the Veterans Loan to the buyer, and carried a second.

Our current place we call "AFGO Cottage, Circa 1940." (It stands for: 'Another F.....g Growth Opportunity,' and is the same circa as I am.
Footnote:  I demanded a citation for the names of those places. Jon said: 

“Two Turtles Singing” comes from The Song of Solomon (Old Testament): “For, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

The other reference is from "The Wind in the Willows," by Kenneth Grahame. Page 88 contains the following: “The Mole struck a match, and by its light the Rat saw that they were standing in an open space, neatly swept and sanded underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole's little front door, with "Mole End" painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell pull at the side.”