Where do you live?

I am frequently asked where do you live? And my answer is always the same in the piney woods. People drive past my home on the front or sail past on the back and still they say where do you live?

I smile and repeat my favorite story told to me by a dear friend who lives in Florence, Italy.

Cosimo De'Medici wanted a country house built and so he asked the most famous architect in Italy to draw up the plans. When the day arrived for Cosimo to review the drawings the architect was stunned when Cosimo said "I don't like it."

The architect asked the richest man in Europe if not the world at the time. What is wrong? Did I not use enough marble, gold, silver, bronze is there something that is too cheap? No said Cosimo you do not understand. "It is not discrete". People passing by should think that it is just another house but those (my friends) whom I invite in are the only ones who should see its opulence . . . .