Missing my friends
I’m missing my friends a lot lately. I didn’t even realize how much until this past week when I got to see friendly faces I haven’t seen all year.
The first one was a total surprise. I came home for lunch and as I rounded the corner to my house, I saw a gold SUV sitting in my driveway. That SUV belonged to nonother than the lady I lovingly refer to as my “Rich Mom” in reference to the Robert Kiyosaki book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
As I stepped into my house, there on my couch was Kim Cook with a radiant smile. As I walked up, she gave me one of those full-on “Kim Hugs” that I love so. She and Ashley had already eaten, so I sat in the in the living room and ate as we caught up on life.
We talked about family, fitness and other things. And as our conversations normally do, our talk meandered back to real estate. She told us about some landlording issues she was experiencing, and we told her about some of our own. And we just sat there in my living room solving the world’s real estate investing problems. And it felt good.
After she left, I got a call from my “Rich Dad,” Bill, who is Kim’s husband. I love Bill. Besides being fun to be around, he is an amazingly smart real estate investor who’s forte is creative deal structuring. Besides being good at creating win-win situations out of impossible deals, Bill has a teacher’s heart and can explain those complex deal structures in a way that even a novice investor can understand.
Bill also has one of those larger-than-life personalities, and he is always planning some big adventure. Right now, he’s preparing to ride his Trek 520 bicycle from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Bill is in his 60s and that’s no small undertaking. But it has been on his bucket list since he was a kid, and it is now or never.
Bill was calling to see if I would go to a board of equalization meeting for him since he was going to be gone when they met. I told him he was a nut, but I agreed to take care of things for him.
Next, I pulled into the parking lot at the Post Office in Adairsville beside yet another gold SUV, and out popped Dorsie Boddiford. (Actually she’s Dorsie Kuni now, but when Ashley and I refer to her, it’s always by her maiden name.) I haven’t seen her since her baby shower last year. That was prior to Covid.
Dorsie’s beautiful smile came beaming out of the driver’s seat as I pulled up. She jumped out, held out her arms and said, “We’ll have to air hug.” That was disappointing on multiple levels. You see, not only does Dorsie give great hugs, but she feels like family to me.
Dorsie has been part of mine and Ashley’s lives for over a decade. She came to visit us when we had to go to Children’s Health Care of Atlanta when Seph started having seizures three days after he was born. She made Ariel a pink blanket that she still sleeps with today. And she has been at birthday parties, picnics, and barbeques. We’ve had many impromptu lunches and I’ve even been in Mexico with Dorsie. And because of Covid, I haven’t seen her and her husband Jimmy since last December. She has a new little one, and so do we. And they have never met.
That’s a bummer.
You see, we met Dorsie at a REIA (Real Estate Investor Association). We meet Bill and Kim at a REIA. And I’ve met lots of other friends, like my good buddies Mike Tarpey and Houston Long, at REIAs. But I haven’t been able to see anyone’s face because all the REIAs closed their live events this year and went virtual — and I am too ADD to stay on a zoom call for two hours.
That being said, I’m going to my first live REIA for the year on Nov. 5. It will be at the Hilton Garden Inn on Main Street in Cartersville where our old one used to meet. And as it turns out, I’ll be the one teaching. We won’t be able to have dinner together before-hand because the restaurant in the hotel is closed, but the event will still start at 7 p.m. I will be talking about our process for finding great tenants.
I’d love to see you there. You can come heckle and throw tomatoes at me for all I care. I just want to see the faces of all my friends again. It’s been too long.
Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.