Tar Heel Home

We have noted before that quite a few of our classmates now live in North Carolina, indeed ten of us.  Intrigued, we asked Brian Hasenflu to comment on his adopted state.  Learning about his log home was a plus.

Brian:  I also find it interesting where our classmates ended up and how they got there.  My wife Marsha and I and our two kids had vacationed at North Carolina's Outer Banks for 28 years and decided that when we retired we would move close to the ocean.  The Outer Banks are too touristy so we chose 3.5 acres to build a log home in Richlands, NC, forty-five minutes northwest of Topsail Island, where Bill and Bob Bartlett each have homes.

After high school I attended YSU to escape the draft, but had had enough after two and a half years and joined the Air Force, for four years with one year in Viet Nam.  I was discharged from the Air Force on a Friday, drove straight home from upstate New York and applied for a job at GM Lordstown on Monday.  Apparently that impressed the HR department because I was hired on the spot.  I felt pretty damn lucky.  The GM jobs were hard to come by.  I retired in March, 2003.

Our fellow classmate Tom Warrender's parents had a log home, and after seeing it I knew we had to have one for our retirement home.  We had lived in two sub-divisions when the kids were growing up.  Marsha and I started planning our new home five years before I retired and did a lot of research into log homes.  "Log Home Living" magazine was a great help.

I was surprised to find out there are so many of our classmates living in North Carolina.  We love it here.  The weather can't be beat.  Two to three months of mild winter weather and some years maybe a little wet snow.  Looking in the class directory I saw the Barlett boys live nearby on the coast.  We chose to live back from the ocean a little ways for a buffer between us and hurricanes.  No regrets leaving PA.  The best move we ever made.