Wander With Wayne

I loved to go to my grandparents’ home. They had sponges that we stacked like blocks, and a toy where marbles rolled back-and-forth down a little track, until they reached the bottom. We played pick up sticks, colored in the coloring books with many colored pencils, markers, and crayons. We also played checkers, Chinese checkers, Sorry and many other classic games. Outside their home in Garland, Utah was a great sandbox, a yard for playing football, baseball with plastic bats, and an incredible apricot tree that leaned over the sandbox and how we loved to climb it. Grandpa’s lawn was always beautiful, no weeds and always cut perfectly. He lived in an area where the snow fell regularly and deep. His sidewalks and driveway were always clear of snow. Of the many fun memories, another stands out. It is the time I began to recognize the beauty of the neighbors’ lawns. No matter where he lived—no matter the season, their lawns were equal to his. The grass was always amazingly green, weed fre...

Photo of 8 apartments was taken 4 years ago by Google. Notice crooked mailbox stand was the same, more  cement stairs have been replaced with sagging Trex (with no support). From this photo it appears there have been a few changes — more weeds and more abandoned vehicles. On July first, Noell began managing 16 apartments in Blackfoot. The job typically wouldn’t be too bad, but the apartments have many years of deferred maintenance. They had left four of the units vacant, so that they could be completely overhauled.  Last week, on Monday I began my workweek at the office. At some point, I was asked to leave my job go over to one of the apartments to check on the work of our “handyman”. We planned to not look at his work on this project, until it was all done, but he requested we stop by. Around two hours later, I’d purchased some tools to help him lay the luxury vinyl planking on the floor and had informed him that he needed to basically start over. He’d been working on a the s...