We moved to a new home a couple of months ago, and it’s been fun telling friends about it.

I like to imitate Chris Farley’s motivational speaker Matt Foley on “Saturday Night Live” reruns. Good ol’ Matt Foley, you may recall, would hitch up his pants and proudly proclaim how he lived in a van down by the river.


“Yeah,” I’ll say, “we sold our oceanside condo and moved into an RV down by the river.”

The looks I get are priceless. I think they translate into sympathy for the sad state of my recent retirement.

Poor Bob. Now just a down-and-out pensioner living in an RV down by the river.

Yes, and his poor wife.

Isn’t it a shame?

I like to think the laugh is on them.

We did move to an RV by the river, a kind of second home where we plan to live until we build a place.

True, it posed a bit of a problem as we downsized from three bedrooms to one bedroom - as we laughingly call the rear of a 365-square-foot RV. Dozens of trips to a storage unit helped.

Our new home has a brick foundation, shingled roof and a wrap-around porch, part of it screened. The porch has as much floor space as the RV itself. A well-tended swimming pool is just a chip-shot away.

Best of all, of course, is the location - as in location, location, location.

We have a million-dollar view of the Intracoastal Waterway, living at a spot where home sites might sell for 10 times what we paid for our RV.

For years, we thought living with an ocean view was the be-all and end-all. We might have been wrong.

Ocean life is great, but living on the waterway has given us a new appreciation for the Grand Strand.

The waterway, unlike the oceanside beach, is quiet and peaceful, a welcome retreat from the tourist madness on U.S. 17.

Boats of every size and style pass below our living room on a regular basis; huge barges navigating in the night offer a special treat.

In the morning, fish jump playfully in the water; we once spotted a bald eagle in trees across the way.

My daughter, initially skeptical, saw where we lived and immediately fell in love with it. “Don’t ever sell,” she admonished.

Friends, also skeptical, would stop to visit, then ask why we’d ever want to live anywhere else.

Good question, but it’s so easy for them. I’ll bet their home has room for a sofa and a desk and probably even a toaster.