Back to the Valley
Yep. We’re back — to the place where it all started. Or, at least, the place where Sharon and I both started.
We have returned to the Clovis-Fresno area, and we are staying in the first of a series of Airbnb’s. No, this is not our idea of a vacation — it’s our idea of our new life.
You see, we have moved back to the Valley to resume the rest of our lives.
And, yes, you may remember my posts on this very blog site several years ago, after Sharon had retired and as we prepared to move, full-time, to the Central Coast home we had owned for a few years. It’s in Paso Robles, and we had been fixing it up — really, really fixing it up — in anticipation of our spending the rest of our lives there.
So what happened, you may ask? (And even if you’re not asking, I’m going to tell you, so don’t go away.)
One of our reasons for coming back is history. Sharon and I have plenty of it around these parts. We were born and raised here. We attended school from kindergarten through college here. We met and got married here.
And then — before the kids were born — we started our long and winding trek around the nation, to a variety of jobs in a variety of cities. You name ’em, we’ve lived and worked there. Atlanta. Phoenix. Detroit. Buffalo. San Francisco. Los Angeles. Of course, Fresno. Even Ames, Iowa. Especially, Ames, Iowa.
But our history is here in the Valley. And, of course, so are our oldest and longest-tenured friends. They stayed while we went off, gallivanting hither and yon, yon and hither, and everywhere in between.
Now, at this point (if, indeed, you’ve read far enough to get to this point), you’re likely saying, “Well, so what? History and friends aren’t enough to prompt yet another move, are they?”
Sure they are. But wait — there’s another reason, as well. It’s called medical care.
Just before Sharon and I moved from Fresno to Paso, I underwent surgery and follow-up treatment — and was oh-so-fortunate to be able to get all that from medical experts who, I was told at the time, were not only the best in this area — but the best in the state.
Two years later, I had a recurrence of the original malady, and again needed surgery and follow-up treatment. This time — because we were living on the Central Coast — we had to spend five weeks in Fresno in hotels around Christmastime so that I could receive care from those same excellent medicos who had helped me the first time.
As you might imagine, five weeks away from home in a hotel at Christmas is not fun. And you can also imagine that — because they have saved my life twice in the past three years — I am unwilling to give up these doctors — even if I could find “replacements” on the Central Coast. And I could not find them.
Heck, it was even tough to find a replacement for my Fresno dentist — who was, admittedly, quite good. He still is, and he’s still here.
So the bottom line became: Since we were often coming back to Fresno for treatment and follow-ups — why not live here or in the immediate vicinity?
And there was at least one more reason — one that I never spoke about with anyone except Sharon when we lived in Paso. And that is — my fear of earthquakes.
Don’t laugh. Unless you’ve experienced — been in the middle of — a major quake like the one we endured in San Francisco in 1989 — when the KPIX newsroom I was in collapsed around us, and when that intense shaking made all of us think we were about to die — you have no idea how that embeds itself in your brain — forever. Since that October day, I’ve hated going to San Francisco. And on the rare occasions I’ve been there, if I’m driving and my car is stopped underneath an overpass — I will unbuckle my seat belt and open the driver’s side door — all the better to escape the overpass collapse I’m certain will happen if another shaker takes place.
And if you think I’m crazy for doing that — well, you weren’t there in ’89 when the multi-level Cypress Freeway in Oakland collapsed during that quake, crushing cars and killing drivers. I had used that freeway to get to work three hours before the quake. And, yes, that same quake brought down a section of the Bay Bridge, destroyed San Francisco’s Marina District, and leveled most of Santa Cruz.
So is it possible that I suffer from a form of PTSD, related to earthquakes? Sure. That would explain the unease I felt after we moved to Paso. After all, that fine town is only 23 miles from the mighty San Andreas Fault. You drive over that fault on Highway 46 every time you travel from Fresno to Paso and back. And we drove over that fault more than a hundred times over the past few years — each trip, a reminder of what might happen, and a reminder of what experts say will happen — sometime.
So, yes. Moving back to the Valley — which has no known quake faults comparable to the San Andreas or Hayward faults — has been a relief. I admit it. And I also admit being worried that — during the overly long escrow sales process for our Paso home — a shaker might hit, demolishing our place and thwarting our move back “home” — not to mention possibly killing us. When our buyers officially assumed ownership of our Paso place on Monday of this week — a tremendous burden was lifted.
Now, don’t get me wrong. We loved Paso and our home in the Quail Run community. We were only a few miles from the ocean, and we went often. Sharon took hundreds — maybe thousands — of pictures there — some of which we produced into family calendars. As for restaurants — we ate at places — lots and lots of places — from Arroyo Grande to Pismo Beach to Morro Bay to Cayucos to Cambria and beyond — and from San Luis Obispo to Atascadero to Templeton to San Miguel. And, of course, we dined at almost every place “on the park” in downtown Paso. All were good — and some were excellent.
And, yes, we made friends in Paso. A couple of people became great friends — Paul and Sharon Finlayson, who lived in our neighborhood. We spent lots of time with them — at lunch almost every Saturday — and at Christmas Eves and New Year’s Eves and Super Bowl Sundays. A wonderful couple. They moved to Montana a few months ago, to be near their son. Their departure was a giant loss for us. And, no, we were not going to “follow them.” As you might have heard, it gets cold up there.
But no doubt, their departure started us thinking about ours. And now — thanks to an incredibly hot market for homes here in California, and an outstanding realtor who happens to live in Quail Run — we are “out” of Paso and “in” Clovis — at least for now. Our Airbnb is wonderful, and it’s delightfully located in a picturesque neighborhood of two-and-a-half and five-acre parcels. We plan to stay here through part of March. Then we’ll have to move to a couple of other Airbnb’s for a few weeks before returning to our current place. It’s complicated — but then again, we have nothing pressing in our lives right now, so we have the time to think about this.
Our plan is to stay around here until our new home is finished in Madera County. Yes, we have contracted to build a new place a few miles north of the San Joaquin River — in what’s going to be a massive “new town” development. Eventually, about 5,000 homes will be built up there, in nine separate “villages.” We’re building in the first “village.” It already has several lovely parks, walking trails, a recreation center and a new K-8 school, with a separate high school campus in the works. The development is a few minutes from some great shopping at River Park in north Fresno — and less than 20 minutes from Millerton Lake. Sharon will have a whole new vista for picture-taking — not just at Millerton, but at Shaver, Huntington and Bass lakes, as well as at Yosemite National Park.
None of this is meant to imply that the Valley is “perfect.” If it was, we would not have moved away in the first place. Air quality here can be atrocious. Crime in Fresno is often intolerable (but Fresno is, though relatively close, still miles away). And, yes, the coronavirus has ravaged this area as it did the Central Coast, and the roll-out for vaccines is as screwed-up here as it was there. No, we have not been able to get our shots, or even get on lists to have shots.
But this is “home” — not just our “past home” — but our “present and future” place, as well. It’s comfortable. We know the lay of the land. And it’s not 23 miles from an earthquake fault.
We’re happy to be here. Again.