I have been living on my property forty-five years today. I moved here on February 25, 1977. When I moved on my property, I was only five years old and Elvis Presley was still alive. If I live for another five years, I will have lived on this property for half a century.

My forty-fifth anniversary of living on this property has landed on a Friday and as it turned out, the day when I moved here in 1977 was on Friday as well. After living here for that long, I consider this place to be both important and special.

It's amazing how much the price of land increases over the years. When my house was built, it only cost $21,000. If it were built today, it would cost around $250,000. Dad wasn't able to pay the full amount of $21,000 when the house was built. He had to make monthly payments for many years.

My brother lived here until 2009 and my parents lived here until 2011. Mom and Dad moved to Sneedville and gave me my house. It cost me $90.00 to have this house's deed put in my name and another $12.00 to register the deed. I paid a total of $102.00 and it was the best $102.00 that I've ever spent.

As it turned out, my parents house in Sneedville was a big fixer upper and because of that, they bought their house cheap. It took Dad three months of hard work to fix the house. I had been saving some money and I gave Mom and Dad two thousand dollars towards helping them fix their house.

At first, Mom told me that I could live here on my property but that this place wouldn't be mine until she and Dad died. But Mom and Dad changed their minds and gave my place to me shortly before they moved.

Sadly, both Mom and Dad died just two years later in 2013. If they hadn't given me this property in 2011, it would've become mine just two years later. When a man lives at a place for as long as I have, it becomes very special indeed.