Remember when they shut down skateboard parks with loads of sand and took down the basketball goals? Those were good times.
I still laugh a little about the COVID differences in the country. You had people on the coasts and urban areas literally shutting down nearly everything and staying inside for months. Here in the Midwest, we tried that for like four days and then everything was pretty much normal except for silly masks and lots of Plexiglas installs. It was like a little secret that we didn’t tell the urban areas, those were the days.
Area real estate continues to scoff at 7% interest rates. Just peeked at some of the big sales that are pending in the metro area. A new construction home is pending in Riverside for $2.2 million, a $1.9-million pad in Forest Ridge area and The National in Parkville continues to ignore the housing doomsayers with two pending sales in the top 10 of Platte County at $1.2 million and $1.3 million respectively.
Riss Lake rounds out the top 10 for the county with two pending sales in the $1.1 million range. If you’re in the market, don’t fret, there are three active listings above $2 million in Platte County ready for you get your checkbook out for. Weatherby Lake has four properties still for sale in the $1.1 million to $1.3 million range, if you hurry you can be on the lake by the 4th of July, no wake zone only!
The year preceding the pandemic, there were a total of five sales in all of Platte County over one million dollars. The past 12 months, there have been 48 over one million bucks. That’s American dollars of the George Washington variety. That is just a mind-boggling change in the market. I have no idea what that means, but it should impress your friends over drinks.
Just to be clear, closing skateboard parks did not impact me much. I’m not much of a skater. I’m not that coordinated, don’t handle my weed well and I dress more “dad bod” style than skater vibe. I never even cared who Tony Hawk was/is.
Speaking of fashion, I’m crushed. I’ve got about two drawers worth of “no show” socks and a couple of unopened packages, just in case. Old “er” people hoard socks, it’s what we do. Can’t have too many socks or underwear, it’s a life rule.
Anyway, I found out recently that “no show” socks are out, and the cool kids are back to ankle length socks with shorts. Don’t even get me started on the men’s 7” shorts. That should not even be legal, yet it’s “in” as well, they tell me.
I’ve officially thrown in the towel. I’m not changing. I’m 56-years-old or so and it just seems worthless. If I live long enough, the no show socks will be cool again when I’m 70ish and there is very little chance I will care one single bit about the length of my socks. I’ll likely be too busy looking for my glasses, medicine, phone and my jug of Ensure to be worried about my sock length, so onward we press with no show socks.
(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or stocking up on Ensure)