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Story By Sharon Young Jebavy

A few years ago I listed a property for sale (I am a real estate broker in
Columbus, Ohio) and just the process of talking with the
owner took my mind back again to Georges Creek, Kentucky, land of my
early childhood....

....I am about 4 years old.  The important things in my world right now
are my big brother (he's 7!), the baby chickens and my puppy.  I have no
knowledge about the world of being a teenager, of dating.

We live on bottom land.  My child's eye looks up from my place in the
yard and I see a big house on the hill across the creek with a long, long
driveway.

A maroon pickup truck is a frequent visitor to the big house.  I can see it
going slowly up the long drive.  Sometimes it stays a long time.
Sometimes it stays only long enough to pick up a passenger and it comes
slowly down the long drive.  It stops before pulling onto the road and I can
see the pretty teenager sitting close to the young man driving the truck.

I sigh.  To me, she is like Cinderella.  (I don't think I had heard the
story
of Cinderella at that time, but I now can identify in my middle-age
wisdom that this was the feeling I experienced.)  I make the first big
decision of my life of which I have memory....when I grow up I'm going to
have a boyfriend with a maroon pickup truck!  In my child's mind it was a
sure thing that if my boyfriend had a maroon pickup truck then I could
be Cinderella.  I wanted to be Cinderella, just like this Cinderella.

The Prince Charming that owned that particular pickup truck married his
Cinderella and they lived happily ever after....until last year when Prince
Charming's life came to a natural end.  It's Cinderella's property that I
have just listed. Cinderella is going back to Georges Creek to be with her
mother.

On a tour of the home, Cinderella tells me that her dad built the wall of
shelves and desk in the front bedroom.  This is special to me because her
parents are a precious part of my childhood.  They're two of my favorite
people.  He's has now passed on after living to be over 90 years old. She is
now over 90. When my family moved to
Columbus in 1950, he was in his prime at 44 years old.  I still think of him
that
way.  Many generations of our families lived, worked and went to church
together. My dad, grandparents, great-grandfather, uncles and aunt are
buried in the country cemetery behind the big house on the hill. Just as
Cinderella and I carry on our business together now, somehow, this
continuity gives me a gentle peace.

Me?  Yes, I married my Prince Charming.  In the middle-aged part of my
life I have just about everything I want.  Well....he didn't have a maroon
pickup truck, he had a red mustang convertible.  But at one point in our 31
years of married life, he owned a maroon stationwagon and that's close
enough!

I've learned some important lessons through the years.  I now know that
it isn't a maroon pickup truck that makes a girl feel like Cinderella.  A
loving husband, who calls me "Love of My Life" and shows up with a dozen red
roses for no reason, who shares his
Nestle Crunch bar he has stashed in his nightstand drawer and who rubs
my hands when my arthritis is painful makes me feel just like Cinderella.
Every woman should feel this good!  It's as close to Cinderella as it comes!
 
 
 
 
 

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