My ex-wife and I lived there only until August of that year, when we got married and moved to Iowa. Of course, it's not the relationship I get nostalgic about. It's everything good about living and working in Ortonville, especially this house.
Sadly, in my trip to Ortonville this year, I found the house for sale and in disrepair. It had been 16 years since I saw it last. (My ex and I visited the next-door neighbors once in '94.)
What also saddens me is that I had a dream radio job for my first gig in the business. Yes, it was 3 1/2 hours from the Twin Cities, the station was an old farm house, it paid $6 an hour, the music format wasn't my favorite (but not too bad for my taste: it was Adult Contemporary, with Oldies on the weekend), the equipment was old and not entirely functional, and because of the small market town of just over 2000 people, there were the Sunday AM church broadcasts, crop reports, and the Little Red Mailbox, which is still a daily feature.
But the beauty of the gig was that it was the perfect opportunity to learn by making mistakes, without getting fired. Further, and more importantly, my boss, while at times being a hard-nosed SOB (I don't mean that as an insult, necessarily; in fact, his dad, the owner, used those exact words to describe him while telling me the story of how his son saved the station), wanted me to push the envelope on the air. He actually encouraged me to be controversial as I was cutting my teeth in the biz. And he didn't mind a bit if I had fun with the Little Red Mailbox and made it "my own."
That kind of gig is almost non-existent in small-market radio (even prior to the Telecommunications act of 1996, which led to owners gobbling up multiple stations, like Red McCombs and Clear Channel, as well as, in my opinion, permanently damaging the quality of radio in this country). In the small markets, the last thing the owner wants you to do is offend a listener, especially since the listeners often are the owners of the businesses that buy the advertising that keeps the station afloat. (Or worse: an owner's wife!)
In my third and final gig in Carroll, IA, I recall a couple instances that still make me figuratively ill. One was when our program director had to apologize to a local merchant for suggesting that the winner of the $500 cash prize in the station's current contest could spend it in many different ways, and after naming a couple examples, added, "Or a trip to the Mall of America in Minnesota." This upset the local jacka...uh, merchant, because the P.D. was promoting, heaven forbid, shopping outside of the city.
Another time, a local car dealer, who spent big bucks with the station (small market stations really depend on car dealer advertising, especially when there is good competition among dealers in the market), was offended by an on-air conversation between the news and sports director and one of the air talents. Their offense: stating that they weren't big Nebraska Cornhusker fans. The car dealer was. (Nebraska borders the western edge of Iowa; Carroll is located in the western part of the state, so you find some 'Husker fans in Carroll.) He was so upset, he threatened to pull advertising from the station.
I don't know how that ever got resolved, but I've ever since been not such a fan of the 'Huskers myself, thanks to that whiny maroon.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Ortonville. That bargain of a house we bought circa January '93 for $30,000 was listed for $14,900 this past May. It was later reduced to $11,900, and I just found it online tonight, reduced to $8,500. Just sad. It may have finally sold at that price, for I found it on a couple MLS-type real estate sites, but on most of the sites from the Google results, the listing was gone.
I don't know how much the low price is due to the economy, nor how much is due to the disrepair. But I took some photos, and while the main color of the house is the same uninspiring, but not too badly aged green, the rest looks awful, and I can only imagine how bad the inside got (from pets, perhaps?) to bring it to the cost of an old, used car. Hopefully, I'm wrong about my perception.
Below are the photos I took of my old, aging friend. Hopefully the new owners, whoever they are or are going to be, will bring it back to the condition I found it during the winter, some 17+ years ago, when I had my dream job.
From the front. The house never looked that great from the outside,
in part because of its old style and bland green color. From the
inside, it was a different story. I do hope it's still just as nice, and
is priced so low primarily because of other factors, such as the
economy. Someone will have themselves a bargain if so.
A little more close up from the front.
The garage is looking pretty rough. The top is still discolored from
the basketball hoop I installed. The driveway needed a lot of work,
too, but I forgot to download that photo. Lots of cracks and weeds.
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