Miriam Webster defines the word anniversary as follows:

Anniversary
noun
the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event

Well in the D’Elia Household this week we think we have 2 recurrences of what we think are notable events.

Today is January 28th, 2025, and on January 28th, 2005, we became the owners of the first floor of 854 Pennlyn Place! If you read the story about our recent trip to Las Vegas, you know that we owned a house there, made a large profit on that house when we sold it, and that profit was the down payment for our Ocean City home! Having sold the Las Vegas house in the fall of 2004, when we came down to Ocean City for the week between Christmas and New Year, we were prepared to house hunt. 

It was only when we started house hunting on our summer vacation in August of 2004 that we discovered the North End of Ocean City, having never really been aware of the island north of 9th Street. Perhaps it was Kismet, but when we came down that winter, we rented on Pennlyn Place. Our Realtor, Ray, showed us several properties up and down the island, but we fell in love with 854 Pennlyn. We saw the place on December 28th, decided shortly after that it was the one for us, made an offer that was accepted, and off we went.

The closing was scheduled for Friday, January 28th, so we drove down the night before and stayed in Atlantic City. The next morning we drove to the house and unloaded some things we’d brought, and at 10 AM we met at the title company on West Avenue. Before noon, all the papers were signed and notarized and when we returned to 854, it was as the new owners of the first floor. A dream we thought just months before was out of our grasp was now reality. We owned a house in Ocean City, New Jersey!

Our original intent was to keep the place for a couple of years, and as prices escalated, to flip to a better property and then another better property, but we got to know Pennlyn Place, and that plan went out the window The very next morning, I was on the front porch and met our next door neighbor, Doc Anderson. Over the years we’ve met so many neighbors and so many of them have become friends. There’s been 20 years of nights out to dinner, 20 years of parties, and 20 years of nights on the front porch with friends. The truth is that we’d be hard pressed to leave 854 Pennlyn. Yes, over the 20 years people have come and gone, but they’ve been replaced by new people. Susie is very sure that this is our forever home, and it would be hard to argue her point!

The second of “the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event” that we celebrate this week is tomorrow, Wednesday, January 29th. You see, it was the morning of Friday, January 29th, 2016 that I last stood on the Mineola Long Island Rail Road platform and waited for the train to take me to Penn Station. I started at ABC as a member of the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department in 1976, and 40 years later, on January 29th, 2016, I retired. 9 years ago I joined Susie in the wonderful world of retirement, and she’s still putting up with me!

So one anniversary of a beginning this week, and one of an end….