Living with Dave had given me exactly what I needed in those first years after college. Paying what was essentially a token rent—about $200 a month—mostly covered food. That simple arrangement turned out to be a huge gift. Not only did I learn how to slalom and waterski more than I could ever hope for, but it also allowed me to save a good portion of my salary for my retirement in a 401(k) and a down payment on a house.
Dave was a savvy investor and helped me understand how to build on my savings. He suggested a stockbroker he trusted, and that guidance changed everything. I began investing in the early ’80s and slowly built enough for something I really wanted: my own home.
I was drawn to the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. Maybe it was the neighborhoods. Maybe it was proximity to work. But probably it was "The Mermaid", one of our regular weekend haunts. The Mermaid on Highway 10 was one of our favorite places to go for live music in the lower-level bar and, every once in a while, a game of bowling upstairs. In addition, there was a restaurant and arcade games, so it offered something for just about everyone. Of course, the real star of the show was the 60-foot mermaid standing outside, visible from the highway like a mythical creature directing traffic. You never needed a map to find the place—you simply drove until an enormous, scantily clad woman with a fish tail appeared on the horizon. The Mermaid gave us plenty of good times, memorable nights, and stories that became funnier with age.
I found a split-level in Mounds View that felt right. 5249 Sunnyside Road. The house was a 1953 split-level with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a walkout lower level, and about 1,800 square feet—more house than a 25-year-old bachelor probably needed. It wasn't exactly stylish. Gold shag carpeting covered much of the floor, harvest-green appliances dated the kitchen, and the dining-room wallpaper looked like it had survived several decorating revolutions. But I didn't care. I could see past all of it. The house had good bones, a quiet neighborhood, a decent yard, and—perhaps most important to me at the time—a basketball hoop mounted over the garage.
Mortgage rates were brutal—around 13 percent—and my rate wasn't locked in. During the two or three months between the offer and closing, every increase seemed to bring another call from the lender: I needed to put more money down. Each time, I reached back into the money I'd carefully set aside for furniture and moved another chunk toward the house. By closing day, I had won the house and nearly lost the furniture.
So I moved in with very little. In true bachelor fashion, I bought a good mattress—but it sat on the floor. I picked up a director’s chair that I carried from room to room depending on where I wanted to sit, and a big console TV that felt massive at the time. Compared to the 15-inch black-and-white TV my brother and I had shared to watch Magnum PI every Thursday night while eating dinner, it felt like luxury. My stereo from college went into the basement, but otherwise the house echoed. It was mine, but it was sparse—and honestly, a little lonely.
For all the excitement of owning my first house, there was another side to it. The rooms were quiet. I wasn't dating anyone. Sue Ann and I had ended our eight-year relationship about a year earlier. For most of my young adult life, I had imagined the future with someone else in it. Now I had this house, this career, and all this independence I'd worked so hard to achieve—and some evenings it was just me, a director's chair, and a very large television in a very empty room. I was proud of what I'd accomplished. I was also beginning to learn that independence and loneliness can sometimes occupy the same room.
I had been disciplined enough to save for a house, but that didn't mean I understood everything about money. After several months of living in these Spartan accommodations, I caved. Dayton’s Furniture Store was running a sale, and the store credit card promised “no money down” and “no payments for months.” I bought about $3,000 worth of beautiful brown leather furniture, pictures, lamps—so very bachelor—and suddenly the living room came alive. What I didn’t fully appreciate was the fine print: miss the payoff date, and all the interest from day one hits at once. I missed it. That became one of my first expensive lessons in consumer credit. I had understood how to save for something I needed. I hadn't yet learned how easy it was to rationalize something I wanted.
Out back was a small garden, maybe twenty by forty feet. My parents had always kept a garden, so working that patch of soil connected me unexpectedly to home. I planted tomatoes, carrots, radishes, lettuce, and beans—especially beans. I quickly discovered the strange mathematics of green beans: the more you picked, the more determined they seemed to multiply. Eventually I was giving bags of vegetables to anyone willing to take them. There was something deeply satisfying about walking into my own backyard, picking food I'd grown myself, and carrying it into a house that belonged to me.
Being a new homeowner sparked a new passion. I tore off wallpaper. I painted walls. I remodeled the bathroom complete with a landline phone by the toilet (which, of course, everyone needs) and a recessed medicine cabinet. I added a ceiling fan in the master bedroom. I added a beautiful bronze arched door on the fireplace downstairs. I tore down the old 2nd level deck and built a new one. I started buying tools as projects demanded them—and some of those tools are still with me today. My interest in DIY had probably begun years earlier, following my dad around and helping with projects at home. But Sunnyside Road was where it became part of my personality. There was no longer a father or landlord ultimately responsible for the outcome. If I wanted something changed, I had to figure out how to change it, and I loved the challenge.
That quest to improve followed me into every home I’ve owned since—about twelve in total. I made it a point to leave each one better than I found it. By the time each house was ready to sell, I took pride in how well it was maintained and improved, and I believe the people who bought them could see and appreciate that care. The more I worked on my homes, the more confident and capable I became, and DIY turned from a necessity into something I genuinely loved.
My most famous—or perhaps infamous—DIY project involved what I considered at the time a stroke of engineering brilliance: installing a limit switch on my garage door so the outdoor lights would turn on when the door went up and off when it went down. Looking back, what happened next wasn't funny at all, although I've told the story with a laugh many times since.
I salvaged a rocker limit switch from an old 3M project, wired it in series with the lights on either side of the garage, and—miracle of miracles—it worked perfectly. But perfection wasn’t enough. I decided the lights should only work at night, which led me to the even brighter idea of adding a timer. Naturally, instead of buying the right part, I took apart a plug-in timer and attempted to creatively “engineer” it into the system. Things went smoothly right up until they didn’t. I had the whole setup jury-rigged on the garage floor to test my idea. When something wouldn’t work, I yanked the extension cord out—and one of the metal prongs stayed behind in the cord, still very much alive with 120 volts. Without a single rational thought, I grabbed that prong between my thumb and forefinger. Instantly, my hand locked up like it had joined a weight-lifting competition I hadn’t trained for, and I couldn’t let go. After what felt like an eternity—it was probably three seconds of full-body regret—I smacked my own hand with the other one to break free. I was lucky. Very lucky. At 25, though, I mostly walked away with bruised pride and a new respect for 120 volts. Lesson learned: sometimes the most dangerous tool in the garage isn’t electricity—it’s an overconfident engineer.
Looking back, Sunnyside Road taught me far more than homeownership. It taught me patience when projects took longer than expected, humility when my clever ideas weren't quite as clever as I'd imagined, and discipline when money was tight. But more than anything, it gave me confidence. Every wall I painted, deck board I replaced, mistake I corrected, and problem I solved reinforced the same quiet message: I can figure this out.
I thought I was building equity in a house. In reality, I was also building something in myself—self-reliance, judgment, resilience, and the willingness to learn by doing. That little split-level on Sunnyside Road would be the first of many homes I would improve over the years, but none would ever again give me that particular feeling of turning a key, opening the door, and knowing that whatever happened inside those walls was now up to me.
That was until I met the woman I would wed. She was lovely with big brown eyes that drew you in... Cindy.