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Victor / Happy Birthday Carrie
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Monday, November 17th, 2008
Victor / Happy Birthday Carrie
Victor is the old guy whose house we rented the first summer we were married. I thought about him this afternoon when this birthday card arrived in the mailbox. Only Victor would write the address out that way. He is one of the nicest yet most eccentric characters I have met. Victor has an incredible mind for all sorts of historical information including dates and will never forget our birthdays or how old we are. The only reason I remember his birthday is because it is on the same day as my father's only Victor is one year younger.
Probably the craziest thing about Victor is that he has been dating his girlfriend, Beverly, for over 40 years (in fact its probably getting close to 50 now). He got an engagement ring in 1981 (or then-a-bouts) but never got around to proposing. He even showed us the ring once; he keeps it in a box which includes other memory items such as the baseball he caught at a Twins game in about 1850. Bev is a sweetheart and has been waiting for him all that time. However, considering the nut-case Victor is, she is surprisingly normal. He is a typical bachelor although a somewhat old fashioned one. His excuse for not marrying is mostly based around his love of all his freedoms to do what he wants when he wants and to be able to have his hair cut the way he wants it, and so on. He has a point but at the same time she has dropped hints throughout the years about him proposing and he always asks us every year what he should get her as a gift. It has become an on-running joke except it has started to get a little annoying. I wish he would just marry her or stop talking about it all the time.
Victor used to travel every summer and rent his house out because he needed the money as he has never been very well off. He used to travel as a kind of evangelist / ventriloquist with his puppet (you know the creepy ones with the wooden heads and moveable jaws?) He would go to schools around the country just driving and living on donations. His house was/is basically a rotting wooden shack with, probably, around 500 square feet. I'll never forget the day I first set eyes on this bargain we were renting. The house is in a nice neighbourhood with reasonably nice houses although not enormous or particularly fancy in any way. So we were driving along looking at the houses, counting down (or up) the numbers, and thinking what a good deal this was going to be. All of a sudden there is a gap in the houses as if one has been clinically removed, but as you drive past and look between the neighbouring houses you can see what looks like a large garden shed that is set back from all the rest of the houses. If anyone goes to St Paul I can give you directions so you can drive by and laugh at this house for yourself.
After Victor came back that summer he helped us move and we helped him move his furniture back. We kept in touch and I would often go around to help him with his VCR that he'd had for years but never taken out of its box because he has technofear. I also felt compelled to buy and set up a new answering machine because I broke his old one when we were staying there. His was one with a cassette that is very simple and was perfect for him. Of course by the 21st Century you can no longer buy new answering machines that take cassettes so he got a digital one. When I got it I never thought anything of it because I didn't know Victor well enough at the time to realize that he won't have a clue how to operate the thing. So it was in capacities such as these that I became his personal tech support.
I think we are the only people that Victor rented to that he has kept in touch with. He has told us plenty of times how attached to us he got. Even Carrie, who thinks he is totally nuts, now admits that she has a soft spot for him. I could go on telling Victor stories but I won't right now because I don't like my blogs to get too long....this is probably my longest so far.
Victor / Happy Birthday Carrie
Victor is the old guy whose house we rented the first summer we were married. I thought about him this afternoon when this birthday card arrived in the mailbox. Only Victor would write the address out that way. He is one of the nicest yet most eccentric characters I have met. Victor has an incredible mind for all sorts of historical information including dates and will never forget our birthdays or how old we are. The only reason I remember his birthday is because it is on the same day as my father's only Victor is one year younger.
Probably the craziest thing about Victor is that he has been dating his girlfriend, Beverly, for over 40 years (in fact its probably getting close to 50 now). He got an engagement ring in 1981 (or then-a-bouts) but never got around to proposing. He even showed us the ring once; he keeps it in a box which includes other memory items such as the baseball he caught at a Twins game in about 1850. Bev is a sweetheart and has been waiting for him all that time. However, considering the nut-case Victor is, she is surprisingly normal. He is a typical bachelor although a somewhat old fashioned one. His excuse for not marrying is mostly based around his love of all his freedoms to do what he wants when he wants and to be able to have his hair cut the way he wants it, and so on. He has a point but at the same time she has dropped hints throughout the years about him proposing and he always asks us every year what he should get her as a gift. It has become an on-running joke except it has started to get a little annoying. I wish he would just marry her or stop talking about it all the time.
Victor used to travel every summer and rent his house out because he needed the money as he has never been very well off. He used to travel as a kind of evangelist / ventriloquist with his puppet (you know the creepy ones with the wooden heads and moveable jaws?) He would go to schools around the country just driving and living on donations. His house was/is basically a rotting wooden shack with, probably, around 500 square feet. I'll never forget the day I first set eyes on this bargain we were renting. The house is in a nice neighbourhood with reasonably nice houses although not enormous or particularly fancy in any way. So we were driving along looking at the houses, counting down (or up) the numbers, and thinking what a good deal this was going to be. All of a sudden there is a gap in the houses as if one has been clinically removed, but as you drive past and look between the neighbouring houses you can see what looks like a large garden shed that is set back from all the rest of the houses. If anyone goes to St Paul I can give you directions so you can drive by and laugh at this house for yourself.
After Victor came back that summer he helped us move and we helped him move his furniture back. We kept in touch and I would often go around to help him with his VCR that he'd had for years but never taken out of its box because he has technofear. I also felt compelled to buy and set up a new answering machine because I broke his old one when we were staying there. His was one with a cassette that is very simple and was perfect for him. Of course by the 21st Century you can no longer buy new answering machines that take cassettes so he got a digital one. When I got it I never thought anything of it because I didn't know Victor well enough at the time to realize that he won't have a clue how to operate the thing. So it was in capacities such as these that I became his personal tech support.
I think we are the only people that Victor rented to that he has kept in touch with. He has told us plenty of times how attached to us he got. Even Carrie, who thinks he is totally nuts, now admits that she has a soft spot for him. I could go on telling Victor stories but I won't right now because I don't like my blogs to get too long....this is probably my longest so far.
How old is Victor?