That Midwest Feeling, Again
Four months have come and gone, like a flash, since Sharon and I sold our place in Paso and moved to our temporary Airbnb here in Clovis. And now the time has almost arrived for another departure — when we head to the great Heart of the American Heartland to spend one more summer in Ames, Iowa.
Our time here in Clovis has been nothing less than delightful — and even energetic. We’ve hit the road more than a few times — field trips that have taken us through the Blossom Trial to the Kings River and up the 168 into the burned-out forests leading to Shaver Lake — and even a trip into our past to North Fork.
We have eaten picnic lunches alongside Shaver and Manzanita lakes, snapped photos of snow-capped Sierra peaks and marveled at how our meager spring rains briefly turned the nearby foothills into green oases. We have made periodic trips north to our future house site in Madera County, and were gratified to see that ground had finally been broken for construction a couple of weeks ago. Build-out time: four to six months.
I have spent hours, walking through my old Fresno High neighborhood with my childhood buddy Al. We grew up there, and we enjoy hoofing it mile after mile through the great, architecturally rich old neighborhoods that have more than 100 years of history. We never appreciated these grand old homes with their wonderful, stately trees when we lived there a half-century ago — but now that we’re old, we appreciate things that are even longer in the tooth than we are.
On our Saturday morning walk a week ago, we spotted a plastic baseball in the street. It wasn’t quite a whiffle ball — but it was close. Al always walks with a metal cane — not that he needs it, but you never know when you might have to discourage aggressive dogs. Anyway, I picked up that ball and started pitching to Al — who used his cane to try to hit it. Then he pitched to me. Of course, the cane was way too small and thin to make contact — at best, we each hit a couple of grounders. But we had a whole lot of fun, trying to recapture the summers of our youth 60 years ago in Fresno. So I went to Target this past week, bought a plastic bat and several plastic balls and brought all of it to another of our walks this Saturday morning. Yep. We played whiffle ball again — this time, at Hamilton Jr. High. And we had the time of our lives.
These past four months have also given Sharon and me the chance to reconnect with this area in many ways. We got back to shopping at the same places we used to frequent before we moved to the Central Coast. Target. Trader Joe’s. Sprouts. Starbucks. Talbots. We dined outside at the Patio Cafe and Jack’s Urban Eats at Fig Garden Village. We got our cars washed in Clovis — and then used the wash’s vacuums to clean out the interiors. In other words — we got back to “normal” life — life before the coronavirus, and before we had ditched this area to move to the Central Coast four years ago.
And once we both got vaccinated for “that” virus, we also returned to seeing people we like — Bud and Peggy Elliott and Faith Sidlow and Jack Noldon and Corin and Joy Hoggard. Good times, talking about our old times at channels 30 and 24 . No, we can’t turn back the clock — but those conversations led me to think about “what if” — what if we’d stayed in Fresno, instead of moving around the nation all those years? How would our lives have been different? Well, for one thing, if we had stayed — we wouldn’t have experienced and seen all we did.
And, of course, we saw the doctors — those men and women we had come to depend upon before we retired to the coast, only to find that we could not find adequate replacements Over There. We kept coming back here for follow-ups to certain conditions that had bedeviled me — and finally decided it was easier, and ultimately healthier, to “be here” instead of “coming back here.”
This past week, we took yet another drive back into our past — this time, our recent past. We drove to the Central Coast for the first time since we had moved four months ago. We stopped first at Amy and Steve’s ranch in the foothills around Arroyo Grande. They’re on quite an impressive building spree — putting up several small structures already, before starting the “big one” this summer — a new home for themselves on their land. They’ll get some help, but plan to do much of their own work.
The next day, we drove north along the coast, stopping at the Cayucos pier on what began as a gloomy, overcast morning but which quickly morphed into a delightful, sunny one. Only a few surfers were out — including a young man who was trying to teach a young woman how to climb onto a surfboard and ride a wave toward shore. No luck. There was also an older man, trying like heck to get a kite into the air on the beach. But the wind would not cooperate, so he gave up.
Then we took off over the coastal mountains for the 25-minute trip into Paso. We dined outside for lunch at the always-good Streetside Cafe and then drove back through the gates at Quail Run for the first time since we’d moved. It was a strange experience, at least for me. It was as if, on the one hand, we had never left — that we were just coming home after a day trip. On the other hand, it was as if we’d been gone for quite some time.
We went into the Quail Run office to see Peppe and Suzanna — found out what had been going on in our former retirement community — then drove the two blocks to our old neighborhood. Our house looked exactly the same — and so did the people inside the house next door. They were our former neighbors, who had gotten together to welcome us back — warmly — with too much wine and too many snacks. It was wonderful. Two hours later, we reluctantly said our good-byes.
So here we are, back in Clovis on this Memorial Day weekend and making plans to drive 1,800 miles across-country once again so we can spend the summer in Ames. This time, we’re taking the “lower route” — I-40 through Kingman and Flagstaff and Gallup and Albuquerque and Oklahoma City, before heading northeast on I-35 through Wichita and Kansas City and Des Moines before we get to Ames.
We’ve gone this way before. We enjoy the “wild west” atmosphere we find in Kingman, the high-mountain vistas of Flagstaff and the movie history that “made” Gallup. Albuquerque has some starkly attractive rock formations, and Oklahoma City has Braum’s ice cream. Trust me, if you’re ever near a Braum’s, do not — repeat, do NOT — pass it by. That ice cream is the best — end of story.
In Wichita, we plan to have lunch with Al and Sally Buch. Al was, and is, the best news director I ever had the pleasure of working for and with — at KPNX-TV in Phoenix. I wish we were both 40 years younger so we could do it again, and for a much longer time than we had.
And after five days on the road, we hope to motor into Ames to re-open our condo for the summer and then immediately head to our neighborhood Fareway to stock up on groceries — especially that unsurpassed Midwestern beef that Fareway offers.
And what a summer we hope to have — doing all the things the coronavirus kept us from doing last year. Dining out with friends at Hickory Park — perhaps the best barbecue spot in the Midwest. Imbibing beverages at the magnificent Cafe Diem on Main Street. Attending Sunday night band shows at Roosevelt Park. Seeing the Ames Municipal Band perform at Bandshell Park.
Sharon wants to get back to volunteering at Reiman Gardens. I want to get back to doing live broadcasts at KHOI Radio, after having to record everything last summer because the virus had closed the studios. We both want to make our way through Ames’ magnificent Old Town neighborhoods. I’m the walker — she’s the bicyclist.
We also want to make a couple of side-trips while we’re in Ames — one, to Washington, DC, to see Bradley and Nicole and a few Smithsonians — and another, to Mount Rushmore and then on to Montana to see our former Paso Robles neighbors Paul and Sharon, who decided to leave warm and sunny California for Montana.
But most of this summer will center on Ames — doing everything we couldn’t last year — and everything we never will again. At some point — likely in August or September — we’ll sell our place on Duff Avenue. Those cross-country treks to Ames over these past years have been educational and interesting, but they are increasingly tiring and more difficult to make.
Our future plans still include travel, of course — but to easier-to-access places like the Pacific Northwest — which we have only briefly explored. And we will want to spend time — lots of time — at our soon-to-be new home in Madera County. Until it’s finished, we’ll be in the Midwest — making waves and plenty of memories.