…and start making memories.
Realtors are the gatekeepers of memories. They unlock the potential of participatory drama. They insert the would be homeowner into a chapter of a history book. They beg the buyer to paint the blank canvas in unique colors. Realtors are the stewards of the time-honored American tradition, the “do-over”.
IF…they do it correctly.
I was reading one of my favorite webloggers, Geno Petro from Chicago, tonight. Geno and I grew up in Philly. He grew up in the original suburban housing tract, Levittown and I grew up in the Jersey rendition, Cherry Hill. I’m the product of immigrants’ kids who got out of their ethnic “neighborhoods” and made it to the holy ground; the suburb.
Cherry Hill was great place to live in the 70s because it was the ultimate social experiment. Kids of all colors, creeds, religions, and ethnicities mixed together in a damned good public school system. We celebrated bar mitzvahs and first communions, ate pasta with gravy, danced the polka, and listened to Motown, Disco, and eventually hip-hop music. I call it the ultimate social experiment because you had these kids running around, learning tolerance and cultural respect, amid the conflict of the generational prejudices of our parents and grandparents. The enlightened ones were our parents. They bucked the clannish “trust nobody unlike you” mantras of the ethnic ghettoes in hopes of a better life for their offspring.
Cherry Hill was a white-collar town with blue-collar thoughts. The parents were lawyers, engineers, salespeople, skilled tradespeople, doctors, and middle managers at the RCA plant. They were mostly educated because their parents insisted, through broken English, that “an education was the ticket to the American Dream”. The blue collar roots came from our grandparents. They taught us how to curse in Italian, wax poetically like Joyce, and dance to Marvin Gaye, all while sprinkling in the Yiddish word or two.
THAT is what I remember about Cherry Hill, not the 4 bedroom, 2 bath Colonial on Orchid Lane.
Consider this post about a five-year old biker and his father, “Things You Don’t Forget” by Geno Petro:
A young boy, maybe four or five years Read more
I’ve always liked good puns in marketing because they’re cerebral and that’s the arena in which I like to engage my clients. 
The most irritating blog topic on the current front burners is Realtor commissions being questioned. I’ve seen several commercials that have made me think that as a consumer, I should question ALL commissions!