VillageLivingOnline.com
November 2013
Village Living Volume 4 | Issue 8 | November 2013
Arrelia says goodbye
• A1
neighborly news & entertainment for Mountain Brook
A long way from home Army JAG officer to return from deployment after nearly a year
Arrelia Callins is quick to speak about how much she has loved Crestline. Read about her work at the Pig for the past four decades inside.
Community page B1
Wheeling into the future
Major Jay Skinner has been deployed to Kuwait in the Army National Guard since January. Photo courtesy of the Skinner family.
By MADOLINE MARKHAM
A new kind of wheelchair will soon enter the health care market, and its roots are in Mountain Brook. Learn the story behind it in this issue.
Community page B13
INSIDE Sponsors ......... A4 City ................... A6 Business .......... A8 Food ................. A11 School House.. A15 Community ..... B3 Sports ............. B14 Faith ................ B19 Calendar ........ B20
This month, Major Jay Skinner will see green for the first time in almost a year. Since March 2, he has watched his dog play in his front yard in Mountain Brook via webcam, but out his window he can only see browns and grays. He’s been in sandstorms where he couldn’t see more than 100 feet in front of him and weathered heat that climbs up to 122 degrees. “It’s like standing in front of your oven with a
hot blow-dryer on you and occasionally throwing some fine sand up in your face,” he said. Jay has been deployed to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait with the 135th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, an Alabama Army National Guard unit based in Homewood. He was stationed in Ft. Hood, Texas, since Jan. 13, with only a four-day leave before going to Kuwait. Although he has served as a reserve officer in the JAG Corps for nearly a decade, this has been his, and his family’s, first deployment.
The emotions that fill his wife, Kathy, and kids, Thomas (16), Hollon (15) and Henry (11), back at home are mixed. Times have been trying without their father’s and husband’s presence, but they are filled with pride that he is serving their country. On the 13th of every month, Andi Gillen, a friend from St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, arranged for a friend to bring the Skinners dinner. The meal has provided not just physical
See HOME | page A22
A faster moving market Agents to share the latest on Mountain Brook real estate at Chamber luncheon By MADOLINE MARKHAM
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For the first time in several years, “sold” signs are keeping up with “for sale” signs around the villages. Residential real estate sales in Mountain Brook are up 34 percent year-over-year, according to a Birmingham Area MLS comparing sales from Jan. 1 to Oct. 16, 2012 to the same dates from 2013. “The market is refreshingly active,” LAH Real Estate agent Dot Mash said. “For so many years, it was slow, but now we are having good activity in all price ranges.” Wilmer Poynor of Ray & Poynor said Mountain
Millie Osborn, RealtySouth
Wilmer Poynor, Ray & Poynor
Brook’s market is stronger than the surrounding areas. Within city limits there is an average of a 3.7-month supply of homes in Mountain Brook, meaning if all listings were
Dot Mash, LAH Real Estate
to be frozen it would take 3.7 months to sell them at the current rate. That compares to an
See MARKET | page A20