Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

Today is December 7th, 2010. 69 years ago at this time Japan was attacking our American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Following is a recollection from a then young sailor that was actually there during the attack. Reposted with permission of fellow Realtor Saul Klein the son of this sailor.

REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR by Marcus Klein, US Navy Retired, CWO-4

“Today is December 7, 1991. Fifty years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I’m going to try and tell my story, the best that I can remember, of the events that occurred on that day to me.

I was attached to the USS Medusa AR?1, which was a battle ship tender. Our duties were to repair battleships. I never was able to get back to my ship.   Being married, I lived outside the base, and rated overnight liberty. The first thing that happened to me was the woman across the street whose husband was a Chief in the Navy came out and started screaming, “The Japs are attacking Pearl Harbor!”   I ran out of our house and looked up in the sky over Pearl. We weren’t too far away. We were next to Hickam Field. I saw the bombs exploding in the air and the planes diving all over and I just couldn’t believe what was happening.

My first thought was they were having a mock battle, but I had the ­radio on and the announcer said all personnel return to your ships. As I ran down the street, I told Lani, “You run up to the hills and hide if the Japs land. You don’t want to be caught by them.” I got on the highway. We lived right near Dillingham Highway. An officer in his car stopped on his way back and picked me up. We headed towards the base and before we got there a plane came straight down the highway, strafing, and we ran off the highway into the cane fields and bounced along until we finally stopped, got out, and ran the rest of the way to the base. As we went through the gate, the Marines were firing at the planes with their 45’s. The only thing we could to do was throw stones at them. That’s how close they were.

We headed toward Fleet Landing which was just a short distance away. When we got down there, there were lots of sailors coming back. The sailor on duty said, “Report to any place on the base that you can be of help. There are no boats running, there’s no possible way to get back to your own ship.”

My ship, the Medusa, was tied about as far away as it could be from the landing. We were on the other side of Ford Island. The battleship row was on this side. The Medusa was on the opposite side at a place called Middlelock, which was off of Pearl City. Next to the Medusa was the Curtis, a seaplane tender.

Along side the Medusa, on the other side, were destroyers.   I think there were 4 of them, old 4?stack destroyers. In the mean time, near the landing, I ran towards a group of men. We all ran towards the Navy yard figuring that was the best place to help. We were almost at the Officers Club when a Jap plane came diving straight down towards us. Several of the men in the group were hit and killed but we kept on going until we got to the docks.

I saw a whaleboat along side the dock, and I told one of the other fellows, “Let’s take this thing out and see if we can help the men in the water.” You  could see the flames and all the water was on fire around the battleships, mainly the Arizona and the California. The Nevada was on her way towards the channel. We ran and got into the  boat and I said, “I can run the engine if you can steer it.” So I started it up and got underway.

We started out towards the Arizona. That’s where most of the fire was. While heading that way, I looked up and saw we were going towards the channel. I turned around and yelled at the guy with me. He had been shot and was over the side in the water. I found I didn’t know what to do. I turned the engine off and dove into the water. I couldn’t do anything for the guy who was in the water, so I swam over to the Okalala, which was over by the drydock and I got out of the water.

The Pennsylvania was in the drydock and the Casin and Downs was forward of it. I remember my dad telling me that, when there was fire you always put water on the building next to it to keep it cool so it doesn’t burn too. So we grabbed a hose. I got another guy to help me. The hose had a suicide nozzle on it and we started spraying down the bow of the Pennsylvania. It was then I could see that this fire was getting out of control. It was really bad on the Casin and Downs, so we started shooting out a stream of water on the Casin and Downs. It wasn’t too long before the fire reached the magazines of one of the ships and she blew up.

The concussion was so great, that in the Pipe Shop, which is along side the dock on the other side of the cranes, the corrugated metal on the walls blew off. I noticed, at this time that I was bleeding from a head wound. The shrapnel from the Casini or the Downs must have hit me; or that of a plane; I have no idea. I don’t know what happened. It didn’t hurt too much. There were too many things going on.

All of this was just hard to believe. Here our fleet, the greatest in the world, was destroyed, being destroyed, and no way of doing anything to fight back. This was a terrible feeling. So I kept thinking I better go and get under somebody’s command. After all , the guy said “go wherever you can to help.” I feel a lot of the ships’ men had been killed because some hadn’t gotten back to their ships. I reported to the first ship I could. At least I would be under the jurisdiction of a command.

I ran down the docks and saw the St. Louis had gotten under way. She had been tied alongside the Honolulu. I figured the Honolulu would go next. I’ll get on her. Well, unknown to me, she had been hit by a 250 pound bomb. It went through the dock and exploded under the water ripping the seams of the Honolulu’s magazines.  Although she’d been casting off her lines, she came back and tied up again. I reported to the officer of the Deck and I guess It looked pretty messy, bloody, and wet. He said,”You’d better go down to sick bay.” I didn’t know where it was so they sent a messenger to take me down and the corpsman put some sutures in my head.

Then I went back to the quarter deck and he said, “What ship were you on?” I told him I was a Fireman First on the Medusa as a metal smith. He said they’d assign me to the metal smith shop. They needed help because they had several oil tanks that were ruptured. They had splits in the seams from the concussion of the bomb that went off in the magazine.  So, I reported to the metal smith’s shop and I went with a working party down into the magazine. I spent the rest of the day and all night in the magazine tearing off insulation so we could get to the seams that were torn open. After I got out of there, I became part of the crew on the Honolulu, so, actually, I was never on the Medusa on December 7^th. I was on the Honolulu, a light square?stern cruiser.

As I look back, I don’t ‘remember how I got clothes. I had no money and no clothes. I guess some of the sailors in the shop had given me clothes to wear and maybe an old toothbrush. I asked if could go back to my ship and they said that eventually they’d get me back. It was ten days before I got back. There was no way I could send word to Lani about what happened. I asked one of the yard workers who was working in the yard if he would stop by my house and let my wife know I was okay.   This one yard worker finally told my wife and the family that I was still alive and aboard the Honolulu. After ten days, I was sent back to the Medusa with a letter stating that I came aboard and received a commendation on the work that I did while I was on the Honolulu.

The first thing the kids aboard the Medusa wanted to show me was my battle station. It seems the destroyers alongside on the starboard side had destroyed the crows nest while firing at the Jap Kamikaza which dove into the Curtis. The destroyers were firing over the Medusa at the plane right through the crow’s nest. If I hadn’t been home, I would have been aboard the ship and would have been killed by my own bullets.

The events were terrible, even after the battle. Remembering December 7th and the things that went on when you look back seems like a lifetime ago. It’s hard to believe that we lived through something like this.  I was in three Wars. I was on submarine war patrols. Nothing could compare with the     sight of seeing the fleet destroyed.

I worked on and got my request approved for submarine duty. In June or July, I was transferred to the Naval station awaiting transportation back to the mainland. While there, we were sent on working parties, digging bodies out of the Arizona and some of the other ships. We were taking them up to Red Hill to be buried.

Looking back today, I hope no one has to go through this again. “This is a sorry day in our history,”as Roosevelt said, “a day of infamy.” Only those who were there can really understand how dreadful, how horrible it all was. I think the wound I got from the ships or from the planes that day is a small thing to happen, compared to what could have happened.”

Post Note by Saul Klein:  My Dad and Mom are both Pearl Harbor Survivors. My Dad, passed away on January 15, 2005. My mom now lives in a “55 or Better” community in Palm Springs. Mom and Dad met in Hilo, Hawaii in January of 1941. My Dad was a sailor, a Jewish kid, 23 years old, from Detroit. My mom was a 17 year old local girl (Hawaiian, Portuguese, English, and a little Chinese for good measure some say). Mom and Dad were married on June 28th, 1941 in Honolulu, by a Justice of the Peace and on December 7, 1941, they lived in Navy Housing Area 3 (NHA 3) on Ninth Street right outside of the Main Gate of Pearl Harbor. My Mother’s parents lived in a little shack on “P Road” in an area known as Damon Tract, which is now where the Honolulu Airport is located. Visit http://MarcusAndLaniKlein.com

Near the town of Knoxville, Tennessee lies the 521,086 acre (more or less) 😉 Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A scenic mountain range that attracts over 10 million annual visitors to view the scenic beauty of the rugged mountains and beautiful pastoral valleys.

A couple of strategically placed web-cams can give you up to date views of what the local weather and scenery looks like most anytime during daylight hours. I’ve seen some very beautiful scenes from looking at these webcams periodically no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

It’s also fun to watch the change of seasons on these webcams. One great use is to monitor the leaves as they change color in the fall if you’re coming for a visit.

One of my favorites is the one at Look Rock just off the Foothills Parkway below Maryville, Tennessee. This is a recent photo from the Look Rock webcam just before dark in late July around 9:00 PM.

Night falls over the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP)

The mountain in the middle foreground with the three peaks on top is Rich Mountain; Cades Cove lies just behind it.

Here’s what you’re looking at in daylight on a clear day.

Here's a handy photo of what you're actually looking at.

Another great webcam is the one on Purchase Knob on the south side of the park. This camera is actually just inside the park boundary but faces east to northeast towards Bald Mountain, Johnson City, Tennessee, and Asheville, North Carolina to the east.

Here’s a shot from the Purchase Knob camera with prominent landmarks identified.

Did you ever wonder what you're looking at on web-cam shots? Here's some help

East Tennessee and the greater Knoxville area are known for natural and scenic beauty; pay a visit soon and look around. Lots of folks do and end up deciding they want to live here.

KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is a great resources to find a home, condo, or land in and around Knoxville.

Have you tried this great Google tool yet? Google Trends Labs lets you search, find, and compare keyword search terms with others to see which ones are being searched for most.

Here’s an example from my area comparing: “Knoxville Real Estate”, “Knoxville TN Real Estate” and “Knoxville Homes For Sale”

Google chart comparing keywords

The blue line above represents Google searches within the US for the keywords, “Knoxville Real Estate” which form the baseline at 1.00

The red line is for “Knoxville TN Real Estate which scored 0.45 or less than half the top keywords rank.

Last is the term, “Knoxville Homes For Sale” which is the keyword set the salesman below told me was the top search term for my area and it ranked 0.39

These results are for searches done within the United States for the year 2009. You can ask Google Trends Labs for most any combination of areas and time periods. Since I believe most of my searches originate in the US that was what I was most interested in.

I found this tool by accident while looking for most used keywords for real estate in my area. I had one of “those salesmen” call me several times trying to sell the proverbial “latest and greatest” keyword oriented website. Looks like Google’s results above doesn’t support his story.

Here’s what Google says about their new tool:

“1. How does Google Trends work? Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.

We then show you a graph with the results – our Search Volume Index graph. Located beneath the Search Volume Index graph is our News reference volume graph. This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories.

When Google Trends detects a spike in the volume of news stories for a particular search term, it labels the graph and displays the headline of an automatically selected Google News story written near the time of that spike.

Currently, only English-language headlines are displayed, but we hope to support non-English headlines in the future. Below the search and news volume graphs, Trends displays the top regions, cities, and languages in which people searched for the first search term you entered.”

Pretty cool stuff from our friends at Google.

BTW, here’s a pretty cool website to search for Knoxville area homes if you’re looking or thinking: www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com

UPDATE May 22, 2010: Made a trip around the Cove on the newly paved loop road. Spectacular! Those of you that remember the old crumbling and patched road there before won’t believe the difference. Still the same scenic beauty but a much better roadbed to enjoy it from now.

Original post follows:

One of the many great things about living in the Knoxville, Tennessee area is it’s close proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There are many very scenic and beautiful sections of the park but one of my special favorites is Cades Cove. Going from Knoxville through Maryville and Townsend to the Cove is about a 40 mile drive but because of the narrow, windy roads in the park allow about an hour for the drive one way.

“The Cove” as it’s known to local folks was originally a pioneer settlement first homesteaded by John and Luraney Oliver around 1818. The Olivers and their descendants lived in the Cove until the Park was established in 1934.

Cades Cove is a very special place to me. The “Cove” as the local folks know it, is an oasis of peace and tranquility in an all too “hustle & bustle” world. Spending a few hours here amid the surrounding green mountains in the meadows and woodlands are like a relaxing ‘mini vacation’. I always come out the other side of the loop road a happier, more tranquil person than when I started off.

A lot of the original buildings have been preserved by the national park service to illustrate how life was back in those days. One of the very enjoyable things you can do in the Cove is to ride your bike around the 11 mile loop road that circles this scenic valley.

This past Saturday I took my bike up to the Cove and set off about 8:00 am to ride the loop. I got a bit later start than usual and there were lots of other bikers either on the road already or getting ready to go. There are also usually quite a few walkers and some runners as well; no exception today.

It’s a great ride with several pretty good pulls up hills that get your heart pumping. Since it’s getting pretty close to fall I saw several bears up in Oak trees stuffing themselves with Acorns in preparation for going into hibernation soon.

This looked to be a pretty young bear. He was busy stuffing food into his mouth and oblivious to everyone below his tree watching and taking pictures.

The Cove also abounds with lots of deer and it’s not unusual to see as many as 100 or more during your tour. Other game include big flocks of wild turkey like the one pictured below, black bear, wild boar, and multitudes of small game and birds of all sorts.

Wild turkey in Cades Cove

Wildlife in Cades Cove are very used to visitors and it’s usually easy to get some terrific photos of the plentiful bear, deer, wild turkey, and other wildlife.

One cautionary note; these are wild animals and there are no bars between you and them like in the zoo. This is also their home; you are the visitor so please respect them, don’t try to get too close, and above all else DO NOT try to feed them or touch them. It is against the law and the park rangers will cite you or arrest you on the spot if they see you. It also does harm to the animals by teaching them to go to humans for food instead of finding it on their own as nature intended.

Here’s another shot of some Cades Cove deer having breakfast. This photo is from a previous visit.

If you’re visiting, the Cades Store has a bike rental for you. $4.00 an hour for coaster bikes and $6.00 for geared models. I highly recommend the geared models for an extra two bucks unless your name is Lance Armstrong.

Riding the loop road takes anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on your fitness level and how much sightseeing you do along the way. I recommend taking your time and enjoying all the Cove has to offer.

If your time is short there are also two roads, Hyatt and Sparks Lanes, you can cut through the middle of the Cove and finish much quicker.

From early May until late September the Cove loop road is closed to vehicles on Wednesday and Saturdays until 10:00 am. I strongly suggest planning your ride during these times especially on Wednesdays if you can arrange your schedule.

Cades Cove is a very, very popular destination and the loop road is typically clogged with vehicles especially during the summer and a bear sighting brings all traffic to a halt.

We usually try to hit the road on Wednesdays just at first light. That’s the time the most animals are out feeding and the crowds are almost nonexistent then.

Enjoy your ride, take along plenty of water, stop and enjoy the views often; I guarantee it’s a ride you will remember for years to come.

Vidalia® onions are in lots of stores now so it’s time to get cooking. These super sweet onions can only be legally called “Vidalia” when grown in a 20 county area of Georgia with the town of Vidalia being roughly in the center. Vidalia, Georgia is roughly located about 90 miles east of Savannah, GA

The Vidalia Onion was named Georgia’s official vegetable in 1990; but enough history, let’s talk about eating them.

The following original recipe I created not only involves a great tasting onion but a legendary Tennessee product as well, Jack Daniel’s famous Black Label, sour mash bourbon whiskey. Don’t worry, using Jack to cook with won’t make anyone tipsy, the alcohol evaporates during the cooking process just leaving that wonderful sweet smell and taste of sour mash bourbon which greatly complements both the Vidalia onions and the chicken.

The following is for 4 servings; easy to fix the same for 2 people and refrigerate the extra portions for another meal, it reheats very well.

You’ll need:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 Vidalia onions, peeled and julienned
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 Cup of Jack Daniels
• 2 tablespoons of Lawry’s seasoning sale (or equivalent)
• 4 slices of Swiss cheese

In a large saute pan melt the butter over medium heat, add the julienned onions and cook until they are translucent, add the chicken breasts, Jack Daniels, and seasoning salt. Cover and cook about 20-30 minutes until chicken breasts are done.

Remove chicken breasts to plate and reduce the liquid in the pan until it begins to thicken. Lay one slice of Swiss cheese on top of each chicken breast and spoon hot onions and liquid onto to melt cheese.

Serve hot with most any vegetable. If you have a large enough bottle of Jack Daniels you can also have a drink before or with dinner. 😉

Bon Appetit.

PS, just in case you need a kitchen to prepare this delicious recipe in, I suggest a visit to www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to pick one out.

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Your irrigation system can bring disease and rot to your lawn if improperly set. For best results, water in 40- to 60-minute intervals two to three times per week. Image: Rain Bird Corporation

Gardening is just about the simplest do-it-yourself home improvement work there is. If you can dig a hole, turn on a spigot, and snip a dead flower off a vine, you’ve got the basic skills down. Still, you do have to make some judgment calls, so it helps to know the ground rules, so to speak, that can help you avoid making some rookie mistakes.

Mistake #1: Making changes too soon

Take the excitement of buying a home, add a nice stretch of spring weather, and you get a lot of enthusiasm for doing yard work. That’s great; seize the day, but don’t jump into wholesale landscape changes, like pulling out plants or reorganizing the layout quite yet.

“That weed that you want to yank out in the spring might turn out to be a gorgeous fall-blooming vine,” says Gary Blondell, owner of Gary’s Gardens, a nursery in Severna Park, Md. Plus, it takes time to learn the landscape and figure out exactly what changes make sense.

Avoid this by: Living with the landscape for a full year, so you can observe it in all seasons.

Mistake #2: Planting too close together

You buy a wheelbarrow full of young shrubs and perennials and plant them in a pleasing arrangement. But if they look properly spaced now, they’re actually way too close together.

Unless you’re creating an evergreen hedge, when the idea is packing things tightly together, the immature plantings will grow into each other in a few years and struggle to compete for sun, water, and soil nutrients. You’ll either have to dig them up and transplant them—or possibly throw them away.

Avoid this by: Following the spacing requirements on the plant label—even though the results will look absurdly sparse at first.

Mistake #3: Planting without a plan

Putting in new garden beds without a long-term landscape plan is like tiling, painting, and wallpapering your house before you figure out your future remodeling plans: There’s a good chance you’ll have to undo your efforts in the near future.

Avoid this by: Drawing a simple, bird’s eye view sketch of your yard, and figuring out the rough location of any future construction—additions, patios, outbuildings, pools—so you can plant around them.

A good local nursery or home improvement store can help you with your design. Or you can hire a landscape designer to create a starter plan for as little as $250 to $500. Find a professional at the Association of Professional Landscape Designers or the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Mistake #4: Neglecting the root ball

Even the hardiest plants need a little help getting their roots established in their new locations. But just turning on the sprinkler every day to douse the foliage isn’t enough to ensure that they get the nutrients and hydration they need. You have to get the water to a plant’s nerve center—the root ball below ground—or it’s going to be stunted or short-lived.

Avoid this by: Placing the hose near the root ball and setting the water to a trickle for about 20 to 30 minutes. Do this twice a week—more during hot, dry spells—for the first four to 12 weeks. Choosing the right irrigation system can help with this task while saving water.

Mistake #5: Ignoring your yard’s sun conditions

Too many nursery shoppers pick plants based only on looks—not the growing conditions they need, which are almost always indicated on a label wrapped around the trunk or a marker pressed into the soil. “They put a sun-loving perennial under a dense tree or something that wants partial shade out in full-day sunshine,” says Blondell. “It looks great for about a week, and then it begins to die.”

Avoid this by: Watching the spot where you’re going to put the plant and estimating the amount of sun it gets over the course of the day during the growing season. To translate that to the language on plant labels, use this key:

Full Sun	6 hours a day or more
Part Sun/Part Shade	3 to 5 hours
Shade	Less than 3 hours

Mistake #6: Misusing irrigation systems

An automatic irrigation system is a luxury that allows you to keep your landscape hydrated throughout the growing season with almost no effort. Unfortunately, with the wrong settings, it can also bring disease, root rot, and an untimely death to the plants in your landscape.

“People tend to set their systems to come on for 15 or 20 minutes each morning,” says Blondell. “That provides a nice saturation of the surface, but not a deep penetrating soak to reach the roots of large shrubs and trees.” And a deeper soak is better for the lawn, too, because it promotes deep root systems.

Avoid this by: Watering for longer intervals—say, 40 to 60 minutes—only two to three times a week. Check with the company that maintains your irrigation system for local recommendations.

Mistake #7: Not budgeting for landscaping during construction projects

Whether you’re building a house or an addition, the bulldozers that excavate the job and the pickups that park on the lawn will damage the grass, trees, and shrubs. And the new building configuration will call for new landscape plantings.

Unfortunately, homeowners don’t often include money in their budgets for this work. So you wind up with a beautiful new family room, screened porch, or solarium, with a few azaleas thrown in around the foundation as an afterthought.

Avoid this by: Allocating 10 to 20 percent of your construction budget to the landscape—both hardscaping and plants—or at least making plans to spend that money as soon as possible after the construction job is complete.

A former carpenter and newspaper reporter, Oliver Marks has been writing about home improvements for 16 years. He’s entering his second summer at his house and has big plans for upgrading its scraggly foundation plantings.

See 11,509 Knoxville area homes and condos for sale right here.

February 2010 is now officially over. The total sales from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors won’t be available until around the 15th of March so as to include late closings from February. We can however take a look at last week’s property transfers from the Knox County Register of Deeds office.

Knox County TN real estate property transfers

I count 104 for the past week which is about on par for this year’s totals. Last year we were averaging around 150 a week but I still believe this year’s numbers will increase as the spring selling market gets in full swing.

I mean who wouldn’t buy a house now if you wanted to and could qualify for a loan. There is a huge selection of homes for sale in all price ranges, motivated sellers who are willing to deal on prices and concessions to buyers, AND the lowest interest rates we’ve seen in a long, long time.

The only think holding real estate sales to their current levels is the jobs (unemployment) and the economic mess the United States (and a lot of the world) finds itself in right now.

The January unemployment figures held pretty much steady at 10% of the workforce. However, the real rate of unemployment — which includes part- time workers who want full-time jobs and people who want work but have simply stopped looking — rose to 17.3% from 17.2%.  Not good.

Only two more months left for buyers to get a home under contract now and qualify for the up to $8,000 tax credit for those that have not owned a home in the past 3 years and up to $6,500 for those that have. Call or email me for details.

Here’s what January 2010 sales looked like compared to previous Januarys. We were up 90 homes in 2010 compared to 2009 so that’s  good news.

January sales

Check out my exciting new website below to see all Knoxville area Realtor listings of houses and condos for sale. Search 1000’s of Beautiful Homes Photos, Prices, Tours, Maps & More!

See 11,509 Knoxville area homes and condos for sale right here.

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