I drove by a plot of land the other day on a busy commercial street in Oklahoma City.  My heart sort of tanked with a memory from over sixty years ago.  Five acres with a small frame house. At one time it was my dream.  Sammy and I went out to look at the land but we knew there was no way we could buy it, so we didn’t bother to go in the house.  Five acres with small house for five thousand dollars.  He was in school during the day and worked the night shift at American Iron and Steel—a pretty good job for those days.  I remember when he got a five percent raise.  How does that sound?  We were glad about it.  His wage went from seventy-five to seventy-eight cents an hour.  I worked full time.  I’m not sure but I think I was working for the state and making about $158 dollars a month.  That’s probably right; that would be about a dollar per hour.  So we had pretty good jobs, but five thousand for a plot of land was an impossible dream.

The land with the house still looks about the same.  It is still undeveloped and there is no sale sign on it.  I wonder who purchased it and why they are holding it.  Curious I looked up the prices for undeveloped commercial land within a mile of that area.  I found three ads:  .56acre, $72,000; 1.25 acre, $99,000; 10 acres, $750,000.  Seventy-five thousand an acre for five acres would make that plot worth $375,000 now.

Is the tanking of my heart caused by regret?  I don’t know.  I’ll not  pine over it, but I will say “I’m no Donald Trump!”

(Lesson Three, Writing101, Single word prompt—Regret)