This week was the time for the annual visit to Scaup Duck Drive in Royal Highlands, Fla., also known as ground zero in the nation’s real estate market collapse. It is also known, laughingly, as Emmet’s winter home.

There is some discussion about erecting a permanent plaque at the address, much as they did at Little Big Horn where Custer met his very last stand. Actually, George C. had much more success at Little Big Horn than I did at Scaup Duck Drive.

It was three years ago, if memory serves (it rarely does), when the country was steaming along with a healthy and robust real estate market. If the national market was hot, Florida was a lava flow. Investors were doubling their money in two or three years.

In Fort Myers, condos were being purchased as soon as they left the drawing board, months before ground was even broken.

The Tampa newspaper advised, on Page 1 no less, to “buy land, buy a house, buy a duplex, but buy something!”

Who am I to resist? I jumped onto Scaup Duck Drive to the tune of 40 large, hoping to double my dough in a few years, pay off Cobb Manor and live happily ever after.

Right.

I believe the second I put my Jonah name on the document, everything screeched to a halt. The demand disappeared. Prices froze, then dropped. Banks collapsed, for heaven’s sake. There is talk about a recession, maybe a depression.

My sainted mother would have told me better. She always reminded me that my beloved Red Sox never won when I attended Fenway Park – for years. “Why do you go to those games?” she would ask.

I recognized that the Twomeys (maternal grandfather in Ireland) were cursed by the trolls, but I thought the curse was limited to the immediate family, especially Twomey cousins, a motley band, indeed. But as God is my witness, I never dreamed it had national, even international, banking ramifications.

I apologize. Scaup Duck Drive apologizes.

Everyone tells me that the combined forces of these fierce New England winters, coupled with the retirement of the baby boomers, will guarantee the return of the Florida real estate market, including even Scaup Duck Drive.

I reply that the trends would indicate that is true, but in what year? Will I ever see dime one out of Scaup Duck Drive? Will my children? What about Matthew and Meara, the beloved and totally charming grandchildren?

I stand there and look at the sandy land, once I find it, and hope and pray. The latest report is it might bring 20 large, if you could find a buyer interested enough in Royal Highlands.

But I fear the only use I will ever get out of Scaup Duck Drive is the day I buy my gleaming (imaginary) silver Airstream trailer and put it on the lot, there to spend my last few days with the rest of the real estate losers.

We will be like the gold rush prospectors, arriving a day late and several dollars short, finding dry holes while the economic parade marches elsewhere.

Scaup Duck Drive.

Anyone want land in Florida?

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.