Blog Posting # 820; Copyright 15 November 2024. EducateMHC
Know this! HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MH’) is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable-attainable, factory-built housing (a.k.a. another type of offsite construction). And land lease communities 9a.k.a. manufactured home communities & ‘mobile home parks’), comprise the commercial real estate (‘CREs’) component of MH! EducateMHC is the online advocate, official historian, trade term & trend tracker, as well as information resource for both business models, and to a lesser extent, the recreational vehicle (‘RV’) industry. Access EducateMHC via (317) 881-3815; email gfa7156@aol.com, and via www.educatemhc.com to purchase Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry and SWAN SONG – a history of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955. Also my autobiography, From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven, describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam as a USMC lieutenant, a 45 year entrepreneur business career in MH & community ownership, as well as freelance consulting, and authoring many nonfiction texts.
George Allen is the sole emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), a founding member of MHI’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, an RV/MH Hall of Fameenshrinee, MHInsider magazine’s ‘Allen Legacy’ columnist and editor at large. He’s a Vietnam combat veteran, retired lieutenant colonel of U.S> Marines, author/editor of 30 books and chapbooks on MH, communities, business management, prayer, and figures of speech.
Two-Thirds of U.S. Households are Family Households
From the U.S. Census Bureau (11/12/2024): “Newly released estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s historical America’s Families and Living Arrangements tables show that about 64% of households were classified as family households in 2024. This marks a significant change from 50 years ago, when 79% of households were family households. Family households are defined as those that include at least one person related to the householder by birth, marriage or adoption.”
Furthermore, “In 2024, almost three-quarters (74%) of family households were married-couple households. Family households that did not include a married couple were more likely to have a female householder (68%) than male householder (32%). Among nonfamily households, about 52% included a female householder, while 48% had a male householder. A substantial portion of nonfamily households were homes with someone living alone – 81% in 2024, compared with 89% 50 years ago.”
What’s Next for the Mainstream Media?
The 2024 Presidential Election is over and everyone knows the stunning result: a landslide reelection of Donald Trump to the office of 47th president of the US of A, along with Republican majorities in the Senate and Congress; a.k.a. ‘A mandate to govern’ via much-needed changes to policies and personnel characteristic of the past four years. Making America Great Again has already begun!
But what does this mean to the so-called mainstream or legacy news media, now in many if not most circles, referred to as the biased and false news media. Will they continue their perennial assault against ‘all things Trump’, relative to fictional Russian collusion, inaccurate abortion legislation claims, and misleading reporting of upcoming policy improvements? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
The Media Research Center reports that ‘trust in political and civic institutions is highest for local and state government, lowest for the media and Congress.’ If true, the national press corps has a very tall hill to climb, to shed itself of a pervasive fake news reputation and obvious political bias. Do they even want to return to the tenets of professional journalism?
And what is professional journalism? Best described in terms of three key characteristics:
- Reporting of the facts
- Checking of resources
- Be understood via a plain writing style
Yes, if today’s tarnished press would simply return to the basics just described, as a society, we’d be a long way towards resurrecting news media credibility, and in time, profitability. But will it happen? That’s anyone’s guess at this point in time.
A Sobering Word to My Middle-age Friends
If you are anywhere near 50 years of age, the following passage is for you! It’s quoted from Susan Orlean’s novel, ‘The Library Book’, published in 2018.
“The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten, but that we are all doomed to being forgotten – that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gave into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts, nothing matters. It means everything we experience unfolds without a pattern, and life is just a wild, random, baffling occurrence, a scattering of notes with no melody. But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and you can see our life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose – a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, as we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string. Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration you believe in the persistence of memory. P.93
I understood the truth of this paragraph when I realized on how very little I knew of past lives in my own family. I have a great grandfather who served in the Civil War, and is buried in Bridgeton, NJ. I’ve visited his grave, but I know nothing more about his life at that time. In turn I realized that if I didn’t write down my experiences during the Vietnam War, my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren would know no more about me than I do about Charles Allen. So, I authored ‘From SmittyAlpha6 to MHMaven’, my autobiography, and now copies are in the hands of our adult children, six grandchildren, and three (soon to be four) great grandchildren. Now I know my story will live on.
I’ve also come to realize the truth of Orlean’s paragraph relative to deceased friends in the manufactured housing business, especially past owners/operators of land lease communities. Because I was a consultant to many of them, I know interesting things about their life stories; but because they did not document those adventures, I remain the only person who can tell their stories during casual times with their peers and families. And that does happen from time to time. Examples. Whose family real estate holdings extend all the way back to the Revolutionary War? Who raised ostriches on his farmland in Florida? Who was a bagman for the Chicago mob and was allegedly executed by them? Whose corporate goal was to make his portfolio of communities the Holiday Inn chain of manufactured housing? And the tales go on.
Need more encouragement to this end? Well, here’s yet another quote – this time from Joel Dicker’s mystery novel ‘The Enigma of Room 622. “Life is a novel whose conclusion we already know: in the end, the hero dies. The most important thing is not how our story ends, but how we fill the pages. For life, like a novel, must be an adventure. And adventures are life’s vocations.” So, when will you tell your life’s adventure?
For help to this end, I recommend you buy a copy of Dan Poynter’s ‘Self-Publishing Manual’, available via amazon.com This handy HOW TO text of 450 pages has undergone at least “16 revised editions and 20 printings in 29 years.” It guided my efforts when penning my first book, ‘Mobile Home Park Management’ way back in 1988 (Yes, that’s 36 years ago). The beauty of this book? Poynter has the reader follow two timelines throughout his book: one ‘splaining’ how to write one’s life story via outline, etc.; the other, for getting front and back material ready in time to ‘go to press’ the same time as the manuscript. An important pairing. And I’ll kid you not, writing a readable book is no easy task, it’s a lot of hard work over an extended period of time, usually the minimum of a year. If you’re going to market your tome to friends, family, acquaintances and beyond, then also acquire a copy of John Kremer’s ‘1001 Ways to market Your Book’. It taught me many things, e.g. put a phone number or email address in one’s Preface so readers can comment on the book they just read, and put a customized post card into every book sold, offering other titles or your professional services to the reader, and more.
Hopefully you’re now motivated to at least explore the possibility of researching and recording your life’s story. A final thought. One well known country singer, in one of his songs, tells us, “Our legacy is those we leave behind” – our spouse, children, and following generations. Will you be satisfied with that legacy? Most folk are. However, if you have a unique, even adventuresome story to tell, then why not ‘live on for decades to come’ as your legacy story is passed down from generation to generation. Think about it!
If you want to talk further about this matter, reach me via gfa7156@aol.com
George Allen