By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

Moving -I remember when it was as easy as throwing a guitar and a sack of really ratty clothes into my convertible VW bug and driving to a new city. No Doans Pills necessary at the end of the day.

Of course things change. You grow up, have kids, drive a car that looks like a moonbuggy and buy very, very heavy furniture. That’s where I am right now, in the heavy furniture/moonbuggy phase of my life. And we’re moving for the first time in almost a decade. I think I’ll need those Doans Pills now, and mix them with scotch.

The last six weeks have been a whirlwind of financial planning, calling utility companies, explaining to young children and trying to figure out how to get all this crap three blocks to our new house. Oh, and let’s not forget the wife watching “HGTV” every single night for great new ideas on how to sell the old house or to get the perfect granite toilet seat.

There’s no respite.

We’ve lived in the same place so long, I’ve completely forgotten whatever I might have once known about moving. Yes, I have a strong memory of it sucking mightily, but some of the minor sucky details have eluded me. Also, since we’re leaving our first home, we’ve never been on that end of the deal either.

Frankly, I’m not very good at the concept of negotiating on price. I wouldn’t offer on a house if I didn’t think it was a good deal, so I don’t really like to haggle on that a whole bunch, and we put what we consider a fair price on our house. So we don’t really want a lot of haggling there either. After a particularly bad offer, my realtor had to inform me writing “Go &*^% yourself!” on the offer sheet isn’t technically a counter-offer. Funny, I always thought it was.

In some ways this move ought to be pretty easy. It’s a very short distance compared to most of the moves I’ve made, so there shouldn’t be any of the attendant problems. For instance, when we moved to Washington, DC many years ago, my brothers and I loaded all of my belongings in a Ryder Truck and towed my car along too, just to make it more interesting. I’ll never forget my brother Brian sweating as we tried to negotiate rush-hour traffic in Atlanta in this heavy truck dragging a car.

I’ll also never forget how we were nearly murdered trying to take the truck back to the dealer after unloading it. Apparently DC has a really bad side of town. Who knew? I was the victim of an attempted holdup when we tried to fill the thing up with gas. Luckily when Brian locked me out of the truck cab, the guy who was demanding my money turned and I saw he really didn’t have a knife. Who knew such a cowardly act would actually help me?

Then when we dropped it off, a full on riot broke out across the street involving people who did, in fact, have knives. Hopefully this new move will involve much less knife-play.

The biggest fly in the ointment in this move is somehow getting our gigantic bed out of our old house and onto the second floor of the new one. My wife bought it online and it’s some kind of panel from a French church. It looks like it might weigh a million pounds. Fortunately, I wasn’t anywhere around when it was delivered. I just hope the guys who move it have hernia insurance – if such a thing exists. It should.

Of course, the other hard part about moving is the unknown. It’s tough to leave a house you like, not to mention one you love. We’ve had a great time in our old place and I can’t help thinking we’re leaving behind a faithful old friend. The new house is bigger and glitzier, which means it could have bigger, glitzier problems. But it is exciting, too.

As I think about spending the last few nights in our old home, I can’t help pondering all the great things that happened here. My kids were born here (not actually born in the house, but you know what I mean), we started this newspaper while we lived here and we’ve had millions of laughs.

I also think about how I rolled back into town after Hurricane Ivan, pulled up to see the house still there in good shape, walked in the front door and the power came back on that second. That felt good. I felt like the house was glad I was back.

Then there was time during Katrina when a branch fell on the roof and I went out the upstairs window to try to cut it down – yes, like a total idiot. I turned around and my dog, Beauweevil, was standing out on the roof with me, ears flapping in the wind. I yelled at him and he took off over the peak of the roof and I had to chase him around. I just knew I’d get killed and become some sort of punchline about an Alabama redneck chasing his dog on the roof during a hurricane.

This first home has taught me a lot: if you’re not one, make sure you have a good handyman; don’t EVER try to build a brick courtyard again; grass is a luxury in the garden district and if your neighbor has rats, you have a problem.

Hopefully we’ll have the same kind of luck in our new home as we’ve had in our old house, and we can turn off the “HGTV” for a while and just relax. More likely though, we’ll just spend our time looking for more heavy furniture.

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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