STEVE, THE MAN WITH THE PLAN: I have new next-door neighbors in the apartment house where I hang my hat. Well, not exactly new; they moved in last September, when the old man and woman who used to live across from me sold the house to an investor. The new neighbors are a married couple with three small kids.<\/p>\n
Oh goodness, just what a quiet guy like me needs.<\/p>\n
(Hey, I don\u2019t hate kids. Back when I was married I would have been open to having one around, had my X not gone off to pursue other romantic interests. After the divorce I did some volunteer youth ministry in an inner-city church for a few years. So I\u2019ve done my time with America\u2019s next generation. But still, I\u2019m not one of those people who just love to have kids around. For me, it was always work. It was often good work, but work nonetheless.)<\/p>\n
I guess that for Steve and his wife, having three kids is also work. A lot of work. But they must like it, because they\u2019ve signed-on into the world of kids in a big way. Steve and Heidi don\u2019t have real jobs; they spend their days running a small business empire. And that empire is built around kids. They run an after-school tutoring and enhancement center<\/a> for kids, and they\u2019re trying to get a book publishing company<\/a> going that specializes in books for kids and about kids. So, these are people on a mission. They obviously have a dream, and they\u2019re taking many chances to make it real. They\u2019re obviously putting up with some genteel hardships; an educated, two-earner couple at their age (late 30s \/ early 40s) should have their own house by now. Instead, Steve and Heidi are packed into a small apartment, and have to put up with seeing me most every day.<\/p>\n But they seem to be making the best of it. Steve\u2019s best friend (who is also named Steve) now lives here in the building, in the basement apartment; he moved in a couple of months after they did. He drives a beat-up Dodge Neon and doesn\u2019t seem to be doing all that well financially either. I\u2019ve heard that he\u2019s a substitute teacher and that he makes a few bucks working part-time at Steve and Heidi\u2019s after-school center. Around 9 pm, once the kids go to sleep, the three of them gather on the porch and shoot the breeze long into the night. Oh yea, and play chess. They\u2019re chess fans, and not surprisingly they teach kids chess at their center.<\/p>\n As you might guess, I haven\u2019t exactly become part of their circle. Steve (the original Steve) actually did reach out to me when they moved in. I tried to respond in a friendly fashion. But after a while, I couldn\u2019t think of what to talk about with him and his retinue. It\u2019s all I can do not to complain about how much they\u2019ve changed the peaceful environment that I once had here; before they blew in, I would grow basil and other spices on the front porch. But now the kids own the porch, and they have a swinging chair right in front of my kitchen window. I\u2019m serenaded by the joyful squeals of children\u2019s laughter while I eat dinner \u2013 at least until I tune in the local rock station and crank up the volume.<\/p>\n Steve and his wife have taken on some big assignments; raising three kids in suburbia today is a huge undertaking in itself (or so I\u2019m told). Then there\u2019s the issue of making two businesses succeed. From what I\u2019ve read, about half of all small business ventures are shut-down within 4 years, and that goes up to about 2\/3 by the end of the sixth year. (Steve and Heidi are completing their second year in business). And the book publishing business is especially risky; the competition is brutal, and the cash flow is awful. You can sink money into such a venture for years and not make a nickel. I hope that the three of them have their resumes ready just in case.<\/p>\n Right now, I’m sort of like Homer Simpson is with his neighbor. Still, I take my hat off to Steve & Company, despite my petty discomfort about the changes that they’ve caused to my habitat. Even though I myself can\u2019t relate to what they\u2019re doing, they\u2019ve got a dream and they\u2019re trying to make it real. They\u2019ve got a true sense of companionship going for them; i.e., the feeling you get when it\u2019s \u201cyou and me against the world\u201d. I envy them for that. They\u2019re an interesting story, and who knows. Maybe one day I\u2019ll actually be glad that I crossed paths with them. Hey, I’ve been wrong before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" STEVE, THE MAN WITH THE PLAN: I have new next-door neighbors in the apartment house where I hang my hat. Well, not exactly new; they moved in last September, when the old man and woman who used to live across from me sold the house to an investor. The new neighbors are a married couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}