2 minute read
There are Countless Ways to Measure 2012
WHEN I WAS IN MY TWENTIES, ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS FROM COLLEGE, JO, LIVED IN A LOFT APARTMENT IN LOWER MANHATTAN. I SPENT A NUMBER OF MY VACATIONS IN NEW YORK CITY, STAYING WITH JO AND HIS FOUR ROOMMATES IN THEIR TINY APARTMENT. THE APARTMENT HAS SINCE BEEN DESCRIBED IN MAGAZINE ARTICLES AS “HARSH CONDITIONS” WITH THE ONLY BATHTUB BEING IN THE CARPETED KITCHEN. I ALSO RECALL THE ONLY SINK BEING THE KITCHEN SINK, SO THE BATHROOM ONLY HAD A COMMODE. WHILE STAYING THERE WE WOULD GO TO THE ROOFTOP TO SOCIALIZE. THIS WAS OFTEN BECAUSE THE LEAD ROOMMATE, JONATHON, WAS ALWAYS WRITING MUSIC AT HIS KEYBOARD IN THE SMALL DEN.
Why has this apartment, out of millions of apartments in New York City, been written about in magazine articles? Because Jonathon turned out to be Jonathon Larson, who wrote the hit Broadway show Rent, which was later also made into a movie. Sadly, Jonathon died of an aneurism on opening night so he never knew Rent’s great success. One really important lesson I learned from this tragedy was to never take anyone for granted. The roommate in the dumpy apartment, who at the time was a waiter, won three posthumous Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for drama. All for those songs he was writing in the den!
My favorite song from Rent is “Seasons of Love,” which poses the question, “how do you measure a year”? You may know some of the lyrics:
Five hundred twentyfive thousand
Six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twentyfive thousand
Moments so dear.
Five hundred twentyfive thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In five hundred twentyfive thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure
A year in the life?
As we near the end of 2012, how do we measure our year at NCAR? We can measure our year through our enormous success in the legislative arena. We worked for the passage of bills, such as the broker price opinion (BPO) and copper theft legislation, that will benefit our members and our state for years.
We can measure it through the $50,000 we gave to nonprofit agencies working to prevent foreclosures in North Carolina. We can use numbers like 14,000 to measure our year – that’s the number of REALTORS® who rallied at the Washington Monument in May for affordable housing and private property rights. We can use the number five, for the fiveyear extension on National Flood Insurance that we worked for and secured … or perhaps 30,000, the number of REALTOR® members of our great state association in 2012.
We can measure the more than $1 million our members invested in Issues Mobilization, RPAC and the NC Homeowners Alliance that allowed us to fight for important legislation and help elect representatives who understand the importance of affordable housing and property rights.
We can measure our success through our “Guiding You Campaign” in which we spread the word through TV and other media that the real estate industry is vital to the continued economic recovery and job creation in North Carolina and that elected officials should not enact any legislation that would potentially do harm to our industry. We can take pride in having hosted the firstever Real Estate Summit in our state in July, during which speakers of national stature drove home these same points about how essential real estate is to the state’s economy. Further, we can measure our year through our collaborations to cohost a breakfast and a billboard campaign in Charlotte during the Democratic National Convention.
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