BRILLIANT photo of Jojo v. Superman by SomeGeekinTn.com via Flickr. THANKS Casey!

After a couple of months on again off again here, I thought it time to post an update on our housing numbers for LaVergne, though it’s still not pretty.  I keep hearing we’re at the bottom but my views are less rosy … until the job market stabilizes, the housing situation will remain where it is – or maybe dip even more.  But I’m not an economist nor do I have a crystal ball to gaze into.  Let’s hope that the widening of Waldron/Parthenon Road will bring more retail or industry to our area to make up for some of the jobs lost.

*The numbers:

Homes currently for sale in LaVergne:  311
Number of homes for sale priced at $150,000 or less:  211
Number of homes for sale prices at $150,001 or more:  100

Least Expensive:
Cricket St. , 1344 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths $39,000 (mobile home)
Willow View, 1364 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, $39,000 (another mobile home)

Most Expensive:
Hampton Road Dr., 4500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, $525,000 (the one with the indoor pool)

Homes Closed since January 1, 2009 in LaVergne:  230
Least Expensive since January 1, 2009: $17,000 (a burned out home actually located in Smyrna and the agent listed it in the wrong area).   Least Expensive ACTUALLY in LaVergne:  $35,000 Willow View (mobile home)
Most Expensive:  $413,765 in the Woodsong subdivision

Homes Closed from January 1, 2008 to July 9, 2008:  300.

Patience, my friends.  It’s a great time to buy.  However if you don’t have to sell I’d say hold tight, though it may be years before we get back to the prices we had in 2006 and 2007.

By the way, I saw a GREAT buy in the McFarlin Pointe subdivision.  A 1520 square foot home in that very nice neighborhood for $152,000.

*Includes all homes in areas 31 and 32 which encompasses Nolensvergne.

It’s no secret that Independence Day is one of my favorite movies.  Aliens, Will Smith, a great speech by a president … what more can you ask for?

Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom… Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: “We will not go quietly into the night!” We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

In honor of today and my favorite movie, I give you this gem from YouTube … What if America had been founded by the characters in the movie Independence Day?

Have a safe, happy, fun Fourth of July!

that TPTB  (the powers that be)  are seriously looking into widening Waldron Road?!?   It’s only needed it for 15+ years…

How can this city possibly get “places where we spend money within the city limits” without doing that?   I don’t know about you all, but I do not go into Antioch to spend my money… I go to Smyrna or Murfreesboro or Franklin.    Mt. Juliet will get my business before Antioch…

If any one wants to open a new “food venue”, Which Wich is Amazing!  Why did Hero’s lose their lease and no one else did?

Just my opinion…

It is with great delight that I write this – Rutherford County has THREE queens this year of baton twirling and two are from LaVergne!  This weekend, my daughter Melissa Tyson, her friend Erica King, and Jayden Deaver of Murfreesboro competed in Memphis for baton twirling titles.  The competition was tough, but all three won after a lot of hard work!

The pageant competition is comprised of five areas for the senior queens:  Talent, Modeling, Interview, Twirling – STRUT, and Twirling – Solo.  Both Melissa and Erica won Modeling, Interivew, and Twirl Solo, cinching the crown.  The junior queens competition didn’t have a Talent portion, but did perform their “parade” routine.

The official results:

Miss Tennessee of Baton – Erica King (LaVergne)
Junior Miss Tennessee of Baton – Melissa Tyson (LaVergne)
Majorette Doll – Selina King (Millington)
Little Miss Tennessee of Baton- Enga Donald (Memphis)
Tiny Miss Tennessee of Baton – Jayden Deaver

We would love to start a class back in LaVergne this year and are hoping our queens will be able to visit our local elementary schools to promote baton twirling as a sport that more children should become involved in.  It’s had such a positive impact on the lives of these girls and thousands more who are athletes in this sport!

OK,  so Police Chief Boyd says that three officers spend 40 hrs a week each in Lake Forest, and that they are patrolling the streets of LFE. I have my doubts about those numbers, but alrighty, we’ll go with it.  If that is in fact the case, why are Stop signs being illegally occluded by random Yard Sale signs?

that’s not all, a few blocks up, there was this one:

Both of these were within about three blocks of each other on La Vergne Lane, which makes me wonder, if there are police patrolling so faithfully, why is something like this allowed to stand? I mean, not only is it tacky, come on, there are plenty of light poles around to stick your signs on, but isn’t it also illegal to cover up traffic signs?

Besides, even if the light poles are truly so full, there’s always the very inexpensive wire sign holders that can be purchased for next to nothing at Home Depot or Lowe’s or most any office supply store. They’re great, you stick em in the ground, pop your sign into it, and viola, a free standing poster for your yard sale!

And if that’s just too much for you, there is the free service of notifying us at The Rutherford Co Yard Sale Directory, and we’ll be happy to update the Yard Sale List with your event’s date, time, and address.

There are just so many ways to do it the right way, that there’s just no excuse for covering up stop signs in a neighborhood where there are constantly children out in the streets. I mean, wasn’t there recently a child struck by a car here in LFE??  Isn’t that reason enough not to go around sticking your yard sale and garage sale signs over the Stop signs?

*Soapbox removed…Fortune Cookies climbing down*

Sorry it’s been slow here on This is LaVergne.  I just came home from a week in Orlando where my daughter and the other team members of the Tennessee Twirlers competed in the US Twirling Association Southeast Regional Finals.  Her team won first place!

The twirlers used to have a class in LaVergne on Tuesday nights, but we didn’t have enough girls (and boys) join this year so the class was cancelled.  However, if you’re interested in keeping your kids busy with something that’s fairly inexpensive (compared to other sports), you might consider it.  The cost is about $90 p/semester for 12 classes and you buy a baton (we have enough where we could loan one with a deposit).  Classes will resume in September…

It starts costing  more money when the girls join the Parade Corps or Teams, but there are fundraising opportunities to help offset the cost.  If you’re interested in learning more, let me know!

After I left city hall today from paying my water bill, I noticed there’s a new restaurant … forgive me when I mess up the name because I didn’t write it down.  R&K Ninja Restaurant, or maybe K&R Ninja Food?   I remember the Ninja part and that there’s food involved.  Does anyone know anything about this place?  Sushi?  Hibachi?

Wait… GOOGLE to the rescue!  S&K Ninja Restaurant.  It’s located in the new retail building with or near the Dominos Pizza place.  I want to hear more!

I wonder what it would take to make a beach at our own Hurrican Creek recreation area.  I’m sure there’d be miles of red tape, federal prohibitions, etc. but a person can dream, right?

Meanwhile if you want to get to the lake and have some fun, Long Hunter State Park has published it’s June activities in the DNJ.  Or the DNJ has published the park’s activities, rather.  I don’t know what sounds like more fun – the frog calling or the bird walk.

Go here to read more.

…May, don’t let the door hit you in the @$$ on your way out!!!

I’m so happy to be done with May I could dance a jig. I would but my butt still has a burn that hurts when I wiggle.
See previous post re: having a seizure at Target.

So, not only did I get the lovely butt-burn, as we’ve come to call it at my house with all love and tenderness intended, of course. Following the butt-burn incident I was visited by yet another seizure last week in which I somehow threw out my back in the process.

Wifester said I constricted pretty tight, and that my back was arched, so I suppose that’s what did it. I spent a few days with heating pads and dreams of being young and not afflicted by such troubles.

Don’t get me wrong, May held some good times. There was the release of the new Star Trek movie, and subsequently the new Star Trek movie glasses from Burger King! Remember the ones from back in the 80’s? Oh, did I give away my age there? The problem with May has mostly been that it has rained pretty much every weekend  ever since Spring sprung, until that is, this weekend.

the couds parted and the angels sang

With all the sunshine and angel song in the air, the Wifester and I decided it’s been a bit too long since we took the Sunny Dog for a picnic in the park. We promptly packed one up and headed out. We have a neighborhood park right around the corner from where we live with picnic tables and shade trees. No playground equipment for kids, but hey, they gave us picnic tables and shade trees…
This park shares property with our LFE Police Sub-Station that was installed last year to hopefully help curb the crime rates in this area., well, you know why they installed it.
I’ve been hopeful about the prospects of having police presence within the neighborhood like this, thinking it would deter criminal activity.

One of my acquaintances from the area commented to me once that she noticed that the same police cars seemed to always be there and the station always seemed to be empty. She wondered if they were simply parked there to grant the appearance of a manned station. That peaked my curiosity. Especially after that U-Haul incident, in which I am certain that I prevented my neighbor’s house from being robbed.

The first thing Wifester and I noticed as we turned into the drive for the park/police sub-station was the front door to the station. Or maybe I should say the Ginormous piece of ply board substituting for a door on the police sub-station.

That’s pretty peculiar. Right? I mean, to me, and I’m no CSI professional, but to me, it looks like the kind of thing one may do after a door has been busted in on.

Hmmmm.

Upon further inspection, it did appear that at least on this day the police sub-station in question was in fact, unmanned with two police cars parked in the back.

Shrugging our shoulders and marking it off to be just another one of those things…we headed on back to the park area.

The next thing that we encountered at our community park was an abundance of these signs:

Really? A park that insists visitors stay off the grass? If they intended it to mean for visitors not to park on the grass, one would think that the signs would be located only in the driveway and parking lot, and read “Do Not Park on Grass” or “No Parking on Grass” or something of the kind. But in my experience, when there is a Stay off Grass sign, the posters of said sign meant just that. And typically they provided a sidewalk to walk on.
Not my neighborhood park, provided by my wonderful city. They stragecialy placed every picnic table IN THE GRASS and then posted a billion signs asking us to STAY OFF GRASS, and I’m pretty sure that was not just an anti-marijuana campaign…

Unable to find a path to any picnic table that was not covered in grass, and not in the mood to receive a citation or fine, Wifester and I opted instead to take the Sunny Dog to Long Hunter State Park. It’s a bit of a ride to get there, but Sunny Dog loves the car ride and there’s no silly Stay off Grass warnings. Plus, we got to see deer and wild turkeys and silly teenagers risking certain death by jumping off of the cliffs and into the lake.

I’m so glad June is here. I hope all the bad Juju that May brought with it is over now too.