A New Generation

So what do you do when you inherit a mobile home community?  For me the answer was easy.  You buy a chain saw and start cutting down trees.  Lots of trees.  That cute little sapling that someone planted 10 feet from their home 25 years ago is now a giant silver maple towering over their home and dropping branches all over.  With such big lots, there was plenty of room for trees and they had been planted with abandon.  But now some residents were concerned with these monsters lurking so close to their homes.  Many dying or dangerous trees needed to be removed.  It was time to replace the messy silver maples with majestic sawtooth oaks and the infected purple plums with redbuds or crabapple varieties.

At first, I was just happy to be able to fell a tree without killing myself.  It’s incredible how many things can go wrong when you drop a tall tree.   If it’s leaning it can barber chair (dangerous), if it’s rotten it can break off unexpectedly (very dangerous), if it’s windy it can fall the wrong direction (unbelievably dangerous).   I learned the plunge cut, the importance of the hinge, wedges.  And I began planting new trees from a local nursery.  In one year alone, 77 beautiful new trees were planted.

But trees were just the beginning of my new job.  It turns out that backhoes are amazingly fun.  Repairing electric, water and sewer lines is quite interesting if you have the right equipment.  In 1995 I expanded Glenwood by building 20 more lots.  And as I learned more about manufactured homes and attended the annual Louisville Manufactured Housing trade show, it seemed it might be better if I could bring in homes more appropriate for each particular lot.  Many Glenwood lots have great views out the back, so I bought homes suitable for back decks and windows facing the open space.  And I could also control the quality of the installation this way.  I used the best contractors and carefully installed each new home.

With new homes and better landscaping, Glenwood looked better each year.  And it turns out for me that running Glenwood is way more fun than sitting in a cubicle writing software and going to countless boring meetings.  So maybe this will work out.  Drop by sometime and we can talk about your favorite chain saw.