You might want to quit now, while you're ahead.
***
It's not like I gave my move to the Sierra Nevada foothills a lot of thought.
Twenty years ago this past November 10, our family took a weekend excursion to Yosemite. It was the first time I'd even HEARD of Bass Lake yet alone visited there, but we'd wanted to go to Yosemite, and Bass Lake seemed a nice alternative to staying in the park. We had reservations at the Pines Resort, but we thought we might end up sleeping in our car because, try as we might, we just couldn't find the Pines. We drove around and around, trying to make sense of the street signs. Finally, nearly ready to give up, we found the magic turnoff and rolled up to our chalet. It was midnight or a little thereafter.
I'm not kidding when I say that the minute my foot hit the dirt, I fell in love. So did Farida. There was just something miraculous about the scent of pines wafting on the gentle breeze and a sky filled to bursting with the Milky Way.
A night's sleep further fueled our determination to look at real estate magazines. We were amazed to realize how much lower property values were up here, in the sticks.
Even though the Sierra Nevada foothills were a new experience for me, living in a mountain setting was a long-held dream. For as long as I can remember, I treasured visits to local Southern California mountain resorts. When my girls were growing up, we spent as many weekends as we could up in Big Bear at the cabin owned by the company friend Betty worked for. Each time--no matter the season--we struggled to figure out ways to extend our stays. Getting snowed in didn't work too well in the summer, though. But our walks in the pine forests surrounding the Fawnskin cabin often centered around if only I could live in the mountains forever. Although at that time it was only a dream, it was one I buried deep within my soul, taking it out and polishing it up every now and then. Later on, when we'd lost access to the Clark-Porche Fawnskin cabin, we shifted our mountain fantasies to the tiny community of Idyllwild, again thanks to friend Betty's connections. The love affair continued.
Each time I'd set foot on mountain soil, my spirit would rejoice. Even if only for the few hours I'd be in that environment, I would relax and leave behind all those worries that inhabited my everyday life.
We spent that next day, a Saturday, exploring Yosemite Valley. It wasn't the first time we'd been there, but it really was the first time it so captivated my heart. I loved every minute of the day. Once again I felt as though I had come home.
That evening Farida and I pored over the newspapers and real estate literature we'd gathered. We realized that property prices were lowest in a little town called North Fork, some 16 miles from Bass Lake.
"Let's check a few places out," we agreed. "What do we have to lose?"
On Sunday morning we made an appointment with a realtor in North Fork. The rest of the family didn't believe we were serious. In any case they were not interested in spending the day exploring real estate. Luckily we' d driven in two separate vehicles, so everyone except Farida, Abid and I went off to do their own thing--agreeing to regroup at 3 that afternoon.
We looked at five houses that afternoon.
One was an A-frame with a broken kitchen window, a very narrow wrought-iron spiral staircase and no driveway. It was located on the road up to Cascadel Woods. If we'd bought it, we'd have to park somehow on the road and schlep anything we needed to carry to the house a few hundred feet down the hill. The next house was on Cedar Lane in Bass Lake Annex. It was small, older and cute but didn't quite hold the appeal we'd hoped for.
The third house we fell in love with: a three-bedroom, two-bath home on about half an acre in an area known as Bass Lake Annex No. 3. An inauspicious name for a lovely place. Backing up to Sierra National Forest land, the property actually seemed larger than it really was. The house wasn't terribly large, but it was in excellent condition, and it fit what we thought we were looking for. The area, too, appealed to us. It was a quiet circle of about 30 houses or so, set a mile and a half from the south end of Bass Lake.
By 3 p.m. Farida and I had made up our minds. We told the realtor we had to meet with the rest of our party and got him to agree to take us back to the house to show it to everyone else--who really couldn't grasp the idea that we were prepared to make an offer on the house that afternoon. They toured the house, liked it but thought we'd come to our senses the next day.
I'm not a courageous person, and I have a tendency to think things through so long that I end up giving up on them. This time I faced a life-altering decision. As long as anyone could remember, I'd said I wanted to live in the mountains. Here was my chance, at a price I could afford, along with Farida's help. Would I chicken out or would I follow through?
Actually, it was my mother who made the purchase possible. After years of ill health, she'd passed away unexpectedly in June. During one of those rare occasions where we'd had a heart-to-heart, she'd extracted two promises from me: that I'd share the money she'd scrimped and saved with Farida and Nasreen and that I'd use a share of it to make a better life for myself.
I did both.
My mother would never have considered such a move herself. She hated country life, and she despised snow. Growing up in tiny Clarks, Nebraska, she'd experienced enough of both to last a lifetime. Yet somehow when I was three, my dad had persuaded her to move to Vista, a small town 15 miles east of Oceanside in northern San Diego County. She lived there with my dad and me for some 13 years, until she ked my dad into moving back to the Los Angeles area, where they'd lived before I was born. That decision, made and executed in the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, devastated me, and I honestly don't think I ever recovered from it. That's a lot of life lived as "what if" and "if only."
Thinking about all of that as I sat in the chair in the North Fork realtor's office, I faced a crossroads. Here was the chance I'd claimed I'd longed for. I could make it happen if I were brave enough. Was I?
We signed the offer that day and drove home the following one, on pins and needles awaiting the outcome. During the two or three weeks we negotiated back and forth with the home's owners, I tried to talk myself into backing down. The whole thing didn't make a lot of sense, but all the pieces of the puzzle were there, and it was up to me (and Farida) to put them all together.
If we had to have a mountain house, Abid tried to talk us into looking for one closer to home, up in Big Bear perhaps. We made a trek up to Big Bear City and looked the area over. As much as I'd once loved the area, there was no contest. The properties were more expensive, the lots small, the houses too close together--and the area more congested and dirty than I'd remembered. No, Bass Lake was the place. Thanks to Abid's suggestion, I'd erased all doubts.
Finally the deal was sealed, and we agreed to a 30-day escrow. Farida and I talked things over. For her the home would be a vacation place. Although eventually I wanted to move fulltime to Bass Lake, I figured that would be way in the future, at least a year or more.
From what I could tell, jobs in the area were scarce, and I had no desire to drive 45 miles down the hill to Fresno to work. I, too, was quite content for the house to be a vacation place until a job materialized. I subscribed to the Sierra Star, watched the want ads and tried to learn all I could about my new home.
On February 1, 1990, we closed escrow on the house.
Over the next months I watched the Star. Few help-wanted ads appeared, but a couple caught my eye, and I decided to submit resumes. I held no hope that I'd get responses. Why would anyone want to take a chance on someone who lived five hours away? Two interviews later, I landed a job in Oakhurst. I had a week to make the move from Santa Ana to Bass Lake Annex.On April 29, 1990, I loaded up my most important possessions, waved goodbye to Nasreen and Abid as they stood in the driveway of our Santa Ana home and drove away. They couldn't see the tears in my eyes.
The following day I started work at California Builders Supply, where I remained--except for a hiatus of six months during which I worked for the Agribusiness division of Travelers Insurance--for the next nine years.
***
Do I regret what some might perceive as a rash act?Not for a moment. I've felt right at home here from the very beginning.
***
The Bass Lake Annex house is no longer mine; I moved out in 1998. In fact maybe it never was. It's now owned by my dear friends, Jack and Jenny. Jenny and I go way back--to the first day of college at
L A State in 1962. I think I just held the house "in trust" for them until they realized it was theirs. But that's a whole other story.
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