An unusual foreclosure sale

There's a story in today's Wall Street Journal about the childhood home of Fed chief Ben Bernanke which was sold at a foreclosure sale not long ago. The slideshow is pretty good too.

Travis Jackson walks through his modest ranch house, admiring the kitchen's built-in spice rack and the red-oak floors. He draws back the curtains, and sunlight illuminates the pride on his face.

The young banker just bought Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's childhood home at a foreclosure sale.

"This is where it all happened," marvels Mr. Jackson, a 27-year-old loan officer at First Citizens Bancorp, which is down the street from the old Bernanke place. "Kind of a surreal feeling, isn't it?"

Mr. Bernanke's family sold the property more than a decade ago. It ended up on the block late last year after its former owners fell behind on their mortgage payments.

The place looks a lot like the one where I grew up in Pennsylvania. In fact, in what is a quite lengthy article, it is learned that the single-story brick house was built in 1949 by Bernanke's grandparents. My father built our single-story brick house just a few years later.