Chapter 3

Ray spent the next six months working both night and day. Each morning he'd be up and out of the house early, running around in his car in order to make the rounds of various planning and zoning departments of the County and various municipalities. He had sources inside each department that would help keep him abreast of any new developments or filings for permits. If anyone within fifty miles of our land decided to build something, Ray knew about it within the week. If a developer submitted plans for any project involving more than two or three new houses, Ray was looking over his plot maps and construction plans even before some agency approved them. Evenings were spent with Ray out knocking on doors and introducing himself to property owners in the same area of our project. Ray had a way about him that relaxed people and put them at ease around him. He'd just introduce himself and tell them about the property that we owned, inviting their ideas and, at the same time, learning what plans they might have for their own land for the future. People were surprisingly candid with Ray, once they were satisfied that he wasn't there to sell them anything. They often told him things that they wouldn't have shared with an agent or a broker. Every night when he would get home, Ray would take a couple of hours and write himself copious notes about what he'd done, and anything that he'd learned that day. At the end of that six month period, while we were no closer to selling any of our three parcels, Ray had picked up an awful lot of valuable knowledge and insights that would serve the two of us well far into the future.

As we all knew it would, the day finally arrived when Billy told me that he'd logged out the last of the good wood from the property. From then on, I'd need to come up with almost two thousand a month to pay for the interest on the mortgage note and the taxes on the land. Ray was over sitting in my living room, filling me in on the interesting things he was finding out in his travels when I told him what Billy had told me.

"How long to you think we have Jackie, before we can't keep up with the interest payments?" I hadn't wanted to worry Ray anymore than he was, but the firewood business had been shrinking a little bit every year for the last several years. The furniture wood business wasn't shrinking as badly, but the profits were declining there as well. My best guess was that I could hold out for another year before I'd have to give up the ghost and admit that we were through. Between the interest and taxes on the land, the interest on the business line of credit, paying the living expenses that Ellen and I had, plus Ray's work and living expenses, which were a lot higher because of his hefty mortgage, I'd been slowly eating into my savings. Without the logging money from the land every month, I'd be burning up savings at about three thousand dollars a month.

"Ray, you don't have to worry about anything but getting us a big profit on that land deal for at least another year. You let me worry about the day to day finances, and you just worry about making us both rich. We've got enough that you don't need to panic, but we've got to watch out for any unnecessary expenses. Don't go out and buy a new car or get Sandy a mink coat for her birthday. It's okay to get diapers and clothes for my beautiful niece though." Sandy had given birth to a little girl, Catherine Elizabeth, and she had her father's big dimple in exactly the same place as Ray's. Ray was a very good father to his two boys, and often took them along with him in the summers, stopping off to fish, or to just take walks through the woods. In the winter time he kept a couple snow sleds in his trunk and would often take the boys out for sledding and snowball fights in some farmer's hilly pasture. I knew he was dying for us to have money again because he wanted to buy a big boat and motor up and down the Connecticut River with his family. Ray wanted to do all the things with his sons that he and my father had never done together. Since he and my father had done very little together, Ray had a long list of things that he wanted to do.

After another few months had passed by and there was nothing going on with the land, Ray started getting discouraged about the prospects for ever getting that property sold off. He would come over to my house and give me all the reasons why he was losing his faith in the deal. I'd sit there listening to him until he'd run himself out of reasons why the deal wasn't going to payoff, and then I'd just remind him once again that we were in it too deeply already to give it all up. We'd already decided to gamble, and we had to keep on trying until we ran out of time and money. Ray would look at me and shake his head in agreement. He'd get up soon after that and go drive himself home to make out his notes on that day's activities. I'd go to bed after those talks with Ray and have a tough time getting to sleep, wondering whether the decisions I'd made hadn't put all of us into unnecessary jeopardy. Ellen never once complained about the path that I'd chosen. She'd see me all worried, and come over and try to cheer me up. "Quit worrying so much Jackie. It won't be the end of the world if we lose everything. It might be fun if we have to start out all over again. I'm sure we could make out just fine." She really believed it too, but I didn't want to have to start out all over. I had gotten lucky once with my firewood delivery idea, and knew that it was unlikely that I'd get another opportunity just handed over to me like the other one had been.

I was down to having about three months more of us being able to hold out, when Ray came over to see me early one morning. He was excited, and for a minute I thought that maybe he finally had some good news about our land deal. Instead, he asked me to give him three thousand dollars. "You're kidding, right Ray? I mean, you can't really think that I've got an extra three thousand dollars just laying around. If you think that I do, you've disconnected from all reality."

"Jackie, relax, because this time I really know what I'm doing. I know that there isn't anyway that the land deal is going to get sold anytime soon. That's just a fact of life, because nothing is going on out that way right now. I wish it was different, but there is nothing I can possibly do to make it different. I've been racking my brain everyday, trying to think of some way to make it happen for us, but I always drew a blank because our property is just in the wrong area right now. If it was over in Poquonnock or out by Billy's, I could sell it right now, but not where it is. I've been all over this area for the past year, you know that right? I know which areas are hot and which ones don't have anything going on. That's why I need the three thousand Jackie, to option three parcels that I know I can sell. Instead of spending all my time trying to sell the impossible, I'll use my time to make us some money so that we can keep on making the interest payments and waiting for the tide to turn out there where our property is. It will turn too Jackie, just not right away."