Page 660 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
operas on tape). My commute was easier, but no matter what the weather, I still had to walk to and from the train in Scarsdale, negotiate Grand Central Terminal, and walk up or down Park Avenue or walk across town to Rockefeller Center, depending upon what firm I was with. And we were frequent visitors to the Metropolitan Opera, ultimately seeing as many as twenty operas in a season. Kathy’s idea to move to a co-op or condo in Manhattan made sense, so, naturally, it never would have occurred to me.
Within weeks, we found a very good broker in Scarsdale and had gone in search of brokers in New York City and rural northern West- chester as well as Litchfield County, Connecticut, where the idea was to find a rural summer house that would placate my desire for spacious, non-suburban living (to offset what I viewed as the confinement atten- dant to apartment dwelling). We both hoped that that residence would serve as a magnet for our children and—dare I say it?—perhaps become our retirement home.
We didn’t mess around. When Kathy comes to a decision (which, of course, I always see the wisdom of), we act. (As I write this, we’re in the same pattern, this time furnishing an apartment in Portland, Maine, which we bought on Kathy’s initiative—virtually sight unseen.) We listed 16 Church Lane South for sale in June 2003. At the same time, we found a broker in Manhattan, who leased a limousine for an afternoon. After a four-hour whirlwind tour in which she showed us about ten apartments, we decided, with next to no hesitation, that we wanted apartment 12D at 180 West End Avenue (which was not far from the apartment at 45 West 60th Street that I had lived in—and had enjoyed visits from the kids in—during the eighties). We got it. After a quick negotiation, we signed a contract and acquired title on July 31. Three weeks later, we sold 16 Church Lane South and departed with a tear and fond memories.
That left a farm-style house on Garnet Road in Roxbury, Connect- icut, a town that we had never heard of, in a county that I had never heard of. It was near Bethel, where Danny was living with his then wife, Marilyn, who was pregnant with my first grandchild, Jesse. (Danny and
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