Those good old Celtic Knots

I was going to go with the homes and moves narrative but realize that for many years almost all my photos were slides. They have not been scanned yet. Talking about old homes with no photos to bring them to life seems rather pointless so that will wait for awhile.

Instead I will jump into a favorite topic: all those non-coincidences and really astounding patterns that, at least in my life, have kept cropping up. Maybe everyone has them and just does not think anything of it?  Maybe I am seeing things that are really not significant at all? ~ One Latina single shoulder shrug. Quien sabe!

When I met my future husband, who happened to live next door, shortly after his first wife had passed in a rather tragic chain of events, we very soon found how many people we knew in common or had at least a passing connection with. I admit that back in the 30s and 40s when we were growing up in Arizona it was a thinly populated new state but I lived and grew in the Verde Valley, almost exactly the geographic center of the state and very seldom went south of Phoenix while Jim grew up in Bisbee, short miles from the Mexican border and in the far southeastern corner of the state. and considered Tucson far north! His dad was in the mining industry, then part of the Phelps Dodge empire which also operated the Jerome and Clarkdale facilities but my family had almost nothing to do with that except for few neighbors so employed and the fact we rented a home from the company. Both the Waltons and the Morgans were avid outdoors folks but mostly in different parts of the state.

When I was hardly more than a toddler, Dad had an occasional visitor he had met through some contacts with the Arizona Game and Fish Commission, a young man named George Daniels. I had close to a crush on him for a bit! A few months later, he joined the Marines for the Korean War as did Jim Walton and they crossed paths being stationed at El Toro in California in the MPs. Later George was working in Yuma, back for the game folks and he and Jim were friends. A bit later, we got acquainted with a game ranger stationed in the Verde area named Don Smith. My mom and his wife Lucy were friends and Charlie, then about six, became friends with Grady Smith and they were in Cub Scouts together.  Ten years later the Smith family was in Yuma and Grady was in a Scout troop Jim led as Scout Master; Malcolm Walton , just a year younger, knew Grady too. Jim and Don shot together and worked an occasional law enforcement issue since Jim was then on the Yuma PD.
Kind of bland stuff. eh?

So let me detour to a name. Among the mentors, very close male friends and partners/lovers in my life--of which there actually hasn't been an enormous number!!--five are named Jim! James McLarney was my high school English teacher in my Junior and Senior years and very much an influence in encouraging me to write. He also helped arrange things when I finally went off to college and we dated casually for a couple of years at that time. A funny aside, the other main English teacher at Mingus with whom I also worked on the annual and newspaper staffs and he and Mr. M kind of co-taught some, was Ernest Gabrielson. Turns out he and Jim Walton were also in the marines together and had been serious buddies at Bisbee High School where both graduated in 1948.

Moving on, in college I signed up for a course called Asian Studies in my last senior semester and did not get the section I had wanted but one that met earlier in the day. I went to the first class, mildly miffed. But the prof was James Revard, and I was quickly fascinated by this dynamic and charismatic man who became a mentor and adviser, a very close friend and almost a spirit guide in many ways.  Our friendship did not end until his death to lung cancer in 1996.

Then in November 1970 after I graduated and started working, I moved from Sierra Vista to Bisbee, farther from Fort Huachuca but where the rents were much more economical. I found my next door neighbor was a policeman and met his daughter who introduced herself to my then roommate and me wearing her cat like a fur stole. In January '71 I was gone for two weeks to a class in San Francisco and when I was paying my rent upon my return the landlord said the lady next door had just passed away. I made polite comments but did not know who she was.

In May I began to get acquainted with the widower cop-next-door and we started keeping company. His name was James Walton and I acquired that name when we married in September, to the consternation of the more conservative folks in Bisbee, but he had two young kids and they needed a mom substitute. Ours was always a practical and friendship-based relationship although the love was there and strong enough to last for thirty two years.

Then in 2007 as I described in a recent post, I met yet another man named James. Jim Lee and I were never strangers from the first time we spoke on the phone to the first time we met face to face and on until after several years with no contact save a few calls and texts, we still share a surprisingly strong, lasting and  intense bond. We were not destined to be a couple this time but are sure we have shard other lives and relationships

Finally in 2014 after I'd lived in Alamogordo for awhile, my brother's lady at the time engineered a meeting between me and a guy she had dated a time or two before she took up with Charlie. He was a big man, talkative and outgoing, blue-gray eyes and again, not a stranger although he often felt to me like a slightly blurred carbon copy of Jim Walton. Jim Smejkal  and I continued to date casually for the next five plus years. We never quite became a couple due to a number of influences and intervening matters but I certainly count him a very close friend and someone I respect and hold in deep affection.

So five Jims.... There was a Charles and a Bobby who were also very important and a number of lesser memories and "boy friends" over the years but somehow five out of seven really significant men in my life seems beyond the purview of mere chance. Next time I will touch on some odd parallels and links of sorts among the seven.

Sorry, no pictures. I do not have one of each of them so will skip that for now.

Energy--the Most Powerful Medicine

I'll take a detour from my talk of houses, homes and moving to share some thoughts that arise mostly from my weekend trip over to my brief home locale of Grant County, NM. The story is perhaps very much a slice of my life--one who leads with her heart, not her head, a romanticist to the core and also an Irish/Taurus person whose loyalties and connections tend to run very deep. I try very hard not to hate and have managed to shed most of my antipathies and forgive even where I sometimes cannot forget. Conversely, my loves stick like embedded burrs and are almost impossible to dislodge.

The tale begins in mid December of 2007. I'd been a widow for four years and had lost my baby brother two years earlier. I was doing my best to manage a half acre lot that grew lots of weeds, two dogs that were having more and more fights, an invasion of ticks, a septic system going bad and a few other 'little' issues. Life was not much fun. For spits and giggles I signed on to a match site called Adult Friend Finders. It was an X-rated one and many of the profiles showed folks flaunting their "junk" in all its splendor. Even as an erotic romance writer I was kind of like, "Whoa!" Then one guy contacted me--at least his profile pic was a headless torso with a pair of tighty whities for a bit of modesty. I replied.

Soon we were exchanging emails and then phone numbers. The first time I head his voice I 'knew' him. It took a few weeks but we agreed to meet midway between where we lived and chose a small town in Cochise County. The date was January 17, 2008. Again we were not strangers in any way and it felt as if we had known each other half our lives. There was an almost audible click as two kindred spirits re-met. and connected.

I ended up moving that summer over to Hurley. NM which was about 15 miles south and east of Silver City. It was time for me to get away from Whetstone. I rented my house for a year and then deeded it over to my middle stepson but that is another tale, mostly told in the past. About the same time, my new friend who I will just call Jim changed jobs and ended up over at Carlsbad instead of in Arizona. His base camp was in Grant County but he worked elsewhere a lot of the time. We stayed in contact and got together now and then but it became increasingly clear we were simply not meant to be a couple in this lifetime.

It was not a lack of compatibility, but what brother Charlie calls romantic relational integration. Middle aged people have a lot of life behind and often still entrapping them; kids, other family, work, debts, obligations and so on.  We realized our very powerful friendship was too precious to jeopardize by trying to build a permanent romantic partnership which would likely fail with hurt and hard feelings despite our best intentions. There had always been a very fraternal or familial aspect to our bond. We both have a lot of Irish ancestry; we both lean toward an ancient pagan view of life and spirituality; we are both Taurus folks, Jim being five years and five days my junior--the first younger man I'd ever had a serious relationship with. We are also both eldest children with that overwhelming sense of responsibility and need to take care, make right, do what is asked or expected. That was part of the issues too. Neither of us can say "No" very well even to unreasonable demands and wind up pulled in too many directions.

The next spring I moved to Colorado and began to share a home with Charlie. In two years, he retired and we moved south, landing in Alamogordo which turned out not to be a good place for us. All through that Jim and I would call or text off and on, sometimes not for weeks or even months but never letting the tie part; it seemed very elastic. I did make it over to Silver City  a few times after he retired and came home to be there for  his two youngest kids. However long it had been, there always was an instant picking up and continuity.

Then I started having the bad eye issues at about the point where Charlie began a two year relationship with a woman who just hit me wrong as I clearly did her. In every sly and subtle way she kept trying to move me out and somehow make me go away. Charlie had a hard time seeing or understanding that aspect for a long time. I can spell depression and it hit me like a two mile train at track speed. From about 2014 on, I would almost have welcomed death but never quite got to the suicidal point. I still kept a-few-texts-a-year contact  and a call or two with Jim but even that almost took more energy than I had. I never told him 90% of my woes, just mentioning the eyes as why I never came over there anymore. I had promised myself there would never be any drama from me for him as goodness knows he had enough elsewhere.

Finally the woman and Charlie came to the ultimate break and I made the trips to Alaska, a nearly desperate effort to find something to give me a purpose and a reason to exist. That did help. Then the idea to come 'home' to Arizona began to take shape and that process completely took over my life for most of two years. I still sent Celtic holiday texts to Jim and let him know of the plans as it took shape but little more. Finally we were here and I told him near Christmas that I really wanted to come over to see him and he said he looked forward to it. He is still working part time, doing flea market stuff and taking care of everyone although the two younger kids are doing fantastic out on their own. I was so happy about that because most of the earlier ones had not and caused him much grief.

And so, I picked a day, not sure it would work and we set up to meet. Yes, it was the 12th anniversary of that initial meeting. I got to the chosen meeting spot a few minutes ahead. He pulled his truck in on the right side of RHM. I got out and circled behind my truck as he got out. I was not all the way there when his arms reached and I walked at once into the 'coming home' hug I have missed for several years. We talked for two hours or more until he got a call and had to go. No drama--I knew what to expect and accepted that. He walked me to my truck and we parted with another hug and a promise to keep in touch better if possible as he thanked me for never failing to do so all this time

No, there is not a proverbial happy ending to this story, at least not in this lifetime, but the friendship lives, thrives and goes on. It will go with me to the veil and probably out on the far side. We have shared other lives and in time will do so again. The resonance of our two energies match so well and the two inner selves fit in so many incredible ways. As in Yolanda Martinez' beautiful song, Forever and Always, "I will always know you." or Glenn Frey's Part of  Me, Part of You. that melding is real and I know I am never totally alone. A man and a woman can be platonic fraternal friends because what is friendship but a very sacred and special form of Divine Energy or Love? I am greatly blessed to have that precious incredible gift.

I'll go into some of the non-coincidences and strange Celtic knots in this and other related matters soon. This is already way too long!! Sue-Ellen, (another spirit connected friend!) I agree--there are NO coincidences. There are patterns and fate and Divine intervention and much else!

Moving--Houses and Homes

This will be a re-post from almost a year ago. I do want to share all the moves I have made over the many years and highlight the homes and residences I have been found in. I also have picked up a detail or two as I went through old family memorabilia and documents as I work on being the family matriarch/historian so if you've already read, just hit skip or delete or whatever!! Also refer back to Houses and Homes, Part 1, Dec 3,  2018 for related information, again if you did not read or have forgotten.

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As the idea of another and I hope very final move begins to take shape, my thoughts are drawn back to the whole notion of ‘moving house’ and the disruption, adventure, excitement and exhaustion that such events create.  So far the end point of this move remains unknown but there will be one and I’ll probably be living there by the end of this calendar year.

Some families, mostly those associated with the military or similar transient professions, move every few years.  My moves have always come in fits and starts. The first big one I do not recall—that was from Missouri to Arizona in early 1946. Actually I’d already lived in three different homes by then and had moved to and from the Boston area and back to Missouri in those few short months. I was not quite three, about 32 months old, when my parents moved to central Arizona. I do not remember that one. We camped in a motel for a few weeks and then found a rental in Jerome.

By my third birthday we were living in a little house on “Sunshine Hill” in Jerome, an old mining town near the geographical center of Arizona.  I am sure the household goods came in a moving van for Dad had driven the little black Ford coupe to get there as I have a few photos to verify. There were still some wooden boxes years later which I am sure had made the journey. That was the first home I remember and we stayed there for about seven years. (OMG—about the same time I have lived in my current home!)

Where it had been...

In the late fall of 1953, we moved from there down into the Verde Valley and settled in two little square brick ‘company’ houses in Clarkdale. I have vague recollections of that move but not a lot of specifics. I was ten and of course had to help pack boxes and such but somehow it did not seem too significant. We used the gray Jeep pickup and a couple of trailers Dad had built or redone to haul the household goods. It took quite a few trips.  Within a few years the little cottage on the hill in Jerome had been lifted from its foundation and hauled away along with most of the neighborhood. I’m not sure where they ended up. We were in the new house by Thanksgiving and had the job completely done a short while before Christmas. Charlie probably celebrated his second birthday in Clarkdale though I am sure he does not recall!

Clarkdale Home years later

That was home for what seemed like a very long time. Years feel so much bigger when you are a tween or teen. I left in early September 1966 to start college at Flagstaff and from then on the family home was really no longer mine. They left, due to some unexpected issues, in the late summer of 1967, bouncing around to several temporary camps and then a time in Sacramento, CA before moving to New Mexico in the early fall of 1968. They lived a number of places from then on, most of which I visited, but never considered home for many reasons.

In Flagstaff, I had several “homes”, five dormitory rooms and then an apartment in a big old house on Agassiz Street, just a block from the Santa Fe mainline tracks. From that time on, I have always enjoyed hearing trains, even at close range.  I did not have a car any of the four year period when I got two degrees by going to all but one summer session as well as the regular semesters. I simply carried my plunder between rooms in two of the dorms and enlisted help of friends with cars to move my stuff across campus for the first summer session and then when I left the third dorm for the apartment.

In three of the dorm rooms I had roommates and lucked out there to get people I could tolerate who could also put up with me! No roomie-from-hell stories to share. My second full year I had solo rooms, which was both good and bad. I tend to be a bit reclusive in many ways and not sharing a room made it harder to get out and do things. That ended when I moved off campus as I had three roommates in that apartment the next two years. Two of them became long term friends as did one from the dorms.

Leaving 17 S Agassiz

Finally my student days were over and I had a job to go to! There was only a weekend between the completion of my graduate studies and my reporting to Fort Huachuca as a brand new civil service employee. I had to jump! I borrowed my roommate’s new car to go take the driving test (until then I had never had a license though permits several times) and the next day rented an Econoline sized van from Ryder to move.  By then I had acquired more than a few boxes and a suitcase of "stuff’ and I wanted to keep it all. Roomie Carol and I drove from Flagstaff to Sierra Vista and I moved into El Cortez apartments, a one-bedroom unit on the second floor. She took the van back to Flagstaff and I was again afoot for several weeks. 

El Cortez Apt--window in upper floor

My co-workers were generous in giving me rides and things worked out well enough. I was already used to walking since I had walked hundreds of miles in Flagstaff as I adjusted from a very active outdoor life to a more sedentary one and then carried home groceries and really everything I bought to include a sewing machine—heavy haul for several blocks!—a typewriter and a small desk from Goodwill. After I had received a couple of paychecks, I got bold. I did need wheels! I rented a car and drove to Tucson. My first stop was Jim Click Ford.

They had two brand new-that-year Ford Pintos in the lot—one white and one lime green. The personable young salesman saw me coming. I drove home in the white one with his assurance he would see the rental returned. I guess he did since they never came after me!

It was wonderful to have my own wheels—finally—in October 1970. However, I soon found my princely salary did not stretch as far as I might wish when a car payment was added to my expenses. I moved from the apartment to a more economical mobile home park rental for two months. At least I had a car now to move my possessions although cramming larger items into the Pinto could be a challenge.

Then I discovered rent was much cheaper across the hill in Bisbee. By then I had another roommate so we again put the Pinto to work and hauled my things and a few of hers over to Bisbee. Through that move I had always rented at least semi-furnished places so moving was not the huge chore it could be with a full compliment of furniture and household effects. That turned out to be the last move I was to make on my own for well over thirty years.

Pinto at Spaghetti Western!

I rented a two bedroom place in an odd little strip of rentals, the only one vacant at that time. Outside it looked enough like a set for a spaghetti western to make me happy and inside it had all the necessary things except only a tub but no shower in the bath. From Clarkdale on I had grown used to showers and was not terribly fond of tub baths.  Water and I have never been really compatible. Then too, sitting in water where one’s dirty body had been while you bathed and then get out seemed vaguely unsanitary. I am not a bubble bath gal.

The move to Bisbee proved to be one of those fated or life changing decisions that sometimes happen to mark a sudden stop and shift in your route. Within a year, I had begun a brand new adventure -- being a wife and an instant mother! So the next move was a family one and a big relief since it happened at government expense! We will continue with that story soon!

New Home--Part II

I'll add a few more photos in a bit but just want to say a little more about my new home. It is almost uncanny how from the first few days, it felt like home and several favorite places such as on the back patio/courtyard in warm weather and in a sheltered spot in front of the garage now that winter has come hold such a sense of peace and calm. There is a serene aura somehow. It is easier not to worry, fret and agonize over the many 'what ifs' that life can run past you at odd times. I will always be a worry wart but I do not find myself getting totally into a kitty-played yarn ball where I cannot break free these days. I may still borrow that neat trick of writing down a worry I want to shelve for a bit, tying the paper into a roll with a twine or ribbon and sticking it in the freezer! It sounds silly but it really does help--especially if you visualize that issue going dormant in the cold and not haunting you until you are ready to deal with it.

It won't be long until hints of spring begin to appear. There will still be cold, windy and wet or even sn*wy days  but spring will come. I am eager to start planting new shrubs and flowers and perhaps even a few veggies. I was sad to leave those I had grown in NM but will start anew. I brought two little special roses from NM in pots and they are planted on the east side of the courtyard. (story of these in "There were Roses" post about a year ago--11 Dec 18 I see) They seem to have taken hold and more will join them before long as well as lilacs, forsythia and maybe some iris. I'll have to protect them from the deer and the rabbits but that courtyard will be an even better place with such beauty to grace it.

So now, a few more photos, inside and out. I took over the well house for a storage place and we have a lot of stuff in the stable which has four big stall areas and a central lane. The walls are not full height but offer some protection and there is a roof, fairly sound. An adjacent feed barn and tack room has more space to be used also. That's more spring work waiting until the right time!

Charlie is getting anxious to start reassembling his big work benches that we tore down to move and arranging the garage so he can work on many projects there. I am supposed to get one section of wall and its adjacent floor space for my jewelry and rock shop but we'll see. If there is not room enough I may get one of those 'cabin sheds' which have fascinated me for some time. For now all that material is boxed up and stored. All in good time...

Living room first day

 Living room now--I shortened the curtains

Kitchen, dining area

Storage in well house--actually
where only  pressure tank is housed

My special roses

Stable area. Well house on far left. 

Coming Home to a New Place

Okay, you followed the travail of the move. Now we are here and I want to share what makes all the struggle worthwhile.

Charlie was born in Arizona and we both grew up here. Due to circumstances beyond our control the kind of home we hoped for as kids never quite came to be. We both took off on our own eventually and built lives, got jobs, worked, had a part in raising some kids not ours by birth but that we cared for deeply, and finally reached the age to retire. At that point we were both again single, me as a widow and Charlie ending a two decade plus marriage with a legal separation. At that point we decided to combine forces and share whatever the future might hold. Yes, new SOs could come into both our lives but that was not guaranteed and we'd work that out if and when it happened.

So first we moved from Colorado (where he'd worked for long years) to New Mexico, and for awhile hoped we had come to a good place. Time began to reveal that we had not. I've already talked of our decision to return to Arizona. We finally settled on the southeast corner, Cochise County. I had lived here the longest of any place in my life and left in 2008 in an attempt to reinvent my life after my husband's death. Charlie had been through starting with a drive-through in 1969 with our parents from their temporary residence in Grant County, NM. He'd been back to visit me several times but still just going through or by. He came over last May to get a better look once we decided this area was probably our best choice. He came home a little dismayed at not finding close to what we wanted. But then the very next day a new listing popped up. We both saw it and thought, "Yes" even before we compared notes. He came back as soon as he could and sent glowing reports to me. We felt sure we were not likely to find more things we wanted in one place. By the first of July, it was ours.

Ours--a five acre long narrow strip just south of I-10 between Benson and Tucson, fenced for livestock, its own well and septic, mostly in natural high desert vegetation with rabbits, birds and a neighborhood mule deer herd!  Although the north fence is on the freeway right of way line, we're a bit higher and the noise is not overwhelming, just a muted hum most of the time. We can even hear trains although the UP main line is about two miles farther north, across the highway and past the little village of Mescal.  We are down about 100 yards from our street, a paved road with minimal flash flood danger and our ranchette is sitting between four "horsey" places.

The house--nearly 2000 square feet under one roof, a split floor plan giving us each privacy and room for projects, big porches for the outdoor living we enjoy and some outbuildings for storage and future workshops. I liked the pictures, trusted Charlie's impressions and knew it would be okay before I saw it. Yes, it is a bit dated in many aspects but homey and rustic and right for us. At 76 and 68 we are a bit dated too!! The house started life in about 1989 as a top of the line Cavco double wide modular. It has been remodeled and added to with 12' wide porches the full length both front and back, an over sized two car garage, and some other structures, clustered in kind of the center of the length of the lot.  All we lack really is a stove or fireplace--you just cannot beat a real live fire for feeling warm!--but that is in the works and will be ready by next winter if not sooner.  The real home and simple comfort we longed for is here and ours at last

And now Pictures; some in this and more in a second post

Courtyard off back porch/patio

Red Dog Room --1st day

Red Dog room today

Red Dog Room today

Project Room moving in

Project Room today

Project Room 2 (RD rm thru door)

 My room (the Red Dog Room since they share it!)  is the master bedroom, 12' X 15' with an attached bath and sits in the SW corner of the house. The project room was intended for dining I think but is very good for my craft and sewing area. Right now our freezer and 2nd fridge are there. That may change or not--we'll see. 

Next post for other rooms and the outside things.

The Move--Part 2

Almost no pictures here--I did not have time and energy to do them!! Here is the view I'd seen before I arrived and the last ABF trailer rolling out of our new driveway.

The Move ctd.

It is probably hard for ‘normal’ people to really get a handle on our lifestyle and situation. Charlie and I grew up in a family where collecting ‘stuff’ was a big part of daily life. There were plans for using most of it, some valid and many more pie-in-the-sky, but things accumulated, heaps and piles and tons of stuff. Part of it was the Post Depression mentality in which our parents had grown up. That generation made the paradigm of reuse-recyle-repair almost a religion. You never threw anything away—worn out clothes could be woven or crocheted into rugs, become dish towels or dust rags; many things could be glued back together, various tools and machines could be refurbished or rebuilt by taking parts from some to replace worn ones in another etc. “Store bought” was almost a last resort. Oh things were, but they had to be taken great care of and used for essential applications, not frivolous or fun. There is a bit of hoarder in all of the Morgans, actually.

Okay, so give this background to a couple of people who are constantly involved in building, making, creating, tinkering and so on. Most of my toys, parts and supplies were fairly light and compact: fabric, jewelry findings and beads, computer and art supplies; well my rock collection and a few lapidary tools and machines not so much but anyway…yes, there was--still is-- a lot.

Charlie had even more weight and bulk. He builds large wood and metal things, and had piles of lumber, metal, hardware and doubles of most tools and machines he used in those assorted projects. He is also majorly into music and owns some 20-30 guitars, several pedal steel guitars, a drum set, a few other stringed instruments and all the amps, speakers, mixers, mikes and such to outfit a band or two. Most he had collected at pawn shops and ‘rehabbed’, a few he had taken to experts to do the needed work he lacked skill to do. Then we both had extensive libraries of books and music media. I could go on and on. Then too the normal household furniture, kitchen stuff and all that. To say dozens of tons was no exaggeration.

The first 28 foot semi-type trailer came about 11 July and it took two weeks to fill, everything packed as tightly and carefully as possible since it would be locked and not opened until we were ready to unload it at the new home. A second trailer came and again took two weeks. The guys in the El Paso ABF yard were awesome and cut us a lot of slack on the time frame; they only came to Alamogordo once a week to pick up and deliver trailers and we took max advantage of that! So before the trailers were done, it was August. The storage units were empty, maybe half of Charlie’s shop (a double garage detached building with lots more around outside) and most of my ‘project stuff’ was gone. But there was still more shop and a ‘normal’ three bedroom home crammed to the gunnels remained. It took two 26 foot U-Hauls to do that.

We headed out with the first one on August 25, very late in the day. That was a stupid move but we were tired, so brain dead we were hardly thinking.  I drove RHM with my two dogs up front and my house plants and quite a bit of personal stuff in the back under the shell. Charlie drove the van and carried Pattie Wagon on the car carrier. It had been in the shop—another crazy tale—and just picked up that day. So off we went. My eyes were blurry, itchy and in poor condition. I didn’t heed their warning. By the time we were through Las Cruces I was following the tail lights of the truck and trailer –several blurry red beacons leading me down the near-invisible road.

I’ve driven when I should not have before and had some scary times, a result of my extreme dry eyes and allergy issues. I’d vowed not to do it again but at least I had a pilot car this time, I hoped… However, in Deming when he pulled off the interstate about 9:00 pm to get gas and find a place to eat, Charlie mistakenly took a back road that rambled around in the truck and warehouse area, with sudden curves and blind spots. Tears streaming in stark fear and frustration, I told my dogs to help me pray my guardian angel would keep us from getting lost or crashing into something. When we finally found an I-Hop, I was very close to hysterical. Quite a bit of coffee, several face washings with cold water and some food later, I finally said I thought I could go on. Somehow I did so, managed not to let those bleary and miserable eyes fall shut as they wanted to and on down the highway we went, hour after weary hour. It was about 3:00 a.m. when I got my first sight of the new home, previously seen only in photos.

Even under those conditions,  my impression was good. I knew at once I was really “home.” We dug out the inflatable mattresses we had bought, grabbed a blanket or two, watered the dogs and let them do their business in the back courtyard and collapsed to fall asleep. But we were still racing deadlines so were up to start unloading the next morning by 9:00 or so. By the next day, a Sunday, we were done and turned in the U-Haul just an hour or two late. The lovely lady there never batted an eye and charged us no overtime. I have to say the U-Haul dealers we dealt with were truly terrific. I recommend them highly!!

We took a much needed week to set up the rudiments of an operating household and headed back to Alamoland the day after Labor Day to do it all once again. That was ‘fun’ too—we took all three dogs in the shell of RHM, still dealing with summer heat and trying to get the air conditioning to blast back there so they would not roast. Ginger had to be tied near the back as she would not stay loose in the shell with LRD and Riata but forced her way thru into the cab via the pass thru window! A few days later we headed west again, this time with Charlie’s old Ford Escort on the carrier and me again driving RHM. The house was empty and looked so strange.

This time we left about 1:00 pm so it was better but still… Charlie forgot to eat and was getting shaky so I went ahead and into Las Cruces to grab a big bag of burritos at a place we knew there while he went on with the van. Again my eyes went fuzzy abruptly and I navigated city traffic with probably 20-300 vision as I put poor Dara (my guardian angel) through another ordeal of managing to keep me safe. I caught up, we ate burritos and on we went. This time we got ‘home’ about 9:30 pm.  From then on, I have been here as have the dogs.

Again we got the truck unloaded on time but Charlie had to make two more trips back --actually three, the last just done, held for another tale--one to get his old Ford F-250 which U-Haul said was too heavy and big to go on a car carrier and one more with a 15 foot U-Haul rented here on a round trip basis. We had found we could haul things we did not think U-Haul would allow such as his oxy-acetylene welding gear and some chemicals and petroleum products in sealed containers. At least we were allowed (rules or not?) and there were no issues.

In between the big U-Hauls and the smaller one, we had the two ABF trailers delivered a week apart and got them unloaded. Things had shifted quite a bit—they must have had a few rude jerks or sharp turns—but damage was minimal. It was a happy day when we watched the last trailer head out of our driveway and knew that essentially the move was complete. Other than lousy bookkeeping on where the trailers were and when deadlines would occur and the fact their ramps were steep and very awkward, ABF/U-Pack was pretty good. The drivers and warehouse peeps were super.

To this day I am mystified as to how we actually did this. The bills of lading on the trailers gave us weights into the two digit multiple tons and I am sure the two trucks were only a little lighter, being considerably less cubic feet of space.  People–including my readers here!—must think we are crazy. I tend to agree, but we grew up in a hard environment and learned early to rely on our own means and never to pay for having anything done that we could do for ourselves. Maybe we really could not do this but somehow that message never came through and the impossible took only a bit longer. Well, quite a bit??

The physical move took most of three months. Naturally we were and are both still a bit tired. Charlie’s back finally went out after the work was done and he’s been seeing a chiropractor three times, then two a week and now down to one. It’s almost back to normal. We have both been moving very slowly through the last two months but it is also that season when the hibernation urge hits, when SAD tends to bring on some depression and the cold makes old, beat up bodies ache. This too will pass. We are here and finally have a good facsimile of the home we have wanted for a long time in a place that feels like home, peaceful, comfortable and welcoming to two weary nomads.  The Powers That Be have been very good to us. I speak my thanks aloud several times every day and think them more.

Next chapter I will give y’all a guided tour, more or less.

The Move From Hell--Part I

The Move from Hell

Yes, it has been a long time since I appeared on this page. Probably in the last one or two posts I may have mentioned there might be a move. It happened. That meant there was no time or energy left for weeks to share the adventure—the good, the bad and the ugly as it were. I see I also did not finish the long sequence of moving adventures that spans my years; I will pick that up in time--part of my ongoing memoir efforts. I'll go back to that after I get us firmly here, in the new home. Without further ado...

It’s a long and twisty tail—er tale—and a mix of humor, agony, relief at times and wondering if we would actually survive to see it culminated. We did and I am here to attest to that. In the end, maybe this move from hell has brought us to about as near paradise as one can attain in this present life.

As most of you know, we had moved from Colorado Springs to Alamogordo, New Mexico in the fall of 2011. That in itself was a rather hellacious move too. In that one we were rushed to get out of a house we had lease-optioned and basically knew we were never going to advance to the purchase phase. Charlie, my brother and roommate, had retired a few months early with a ‘buy out’ and we had a little extra cash from selling a couple of lots in Silver City, NM that were in our baby brother’s estate.

For that move we loaded three sixteen foot POD units to the max and then still had to take two twenty six foot U-Haul trucks and did it all between September 5 and October 14. Due to Charlie’s credit issues from his divorce a few years earlier, the mortgage for that house was in my name and I signed the papers on October 5, 2011. We had arrived with the first U-Haul the night before and gotten grudging permission to bring in beds so we could sleep and keep the three dogs with us before we were official ‘owners.’

We went from about a 2200 sq ft house to a 1250 one so it was a mess for quite awhile and we had to rent storage units which we kept the full eight years. Dumb? Yeah but there are things you just have to do sometimes.

Anyway we gradually grew less happy with the home and that area and realized the dust and other factors were unhealthy, at least for us. Still another move was so daunting and the financial side was going to be complicated to impossible. So in September 2017 I went back to central Arizona for a high school reunion and kind of bid farewell to familiar places around the Verde Valley and northern Arizona. When I got home, I was quite surprised when one of the first things Charlie said was, “We need to move back to Arizona.”

And so it began. We both haunted Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com and soon centered on two areas in opposite corners of the state—Cochise and Mojave counties. The main reasons were climate, price range for the type of property we wanted, and especially for Mojave, that the transcontinental mainline of the BNSF railroad ran through it. The UP southern route similarly crossed Cochise, a second level draw. We are both rail fans as you probably know.

We both started sorting and organizing and trying to figure out how to get literal tons from there to wherever.  That went in fits and starts with weather, occasional health junk and so on often causing a pause in the efforts. But we kept at it, at least most of the time. Meanwhile the financial side still seemed to be the biggest barrier. Then almost a year after that start, I realized I was probably the owner of a piece of real estate in Bisbee, AZ. It was not suitable for us and I would not live there for love or money but it was essentially legally mine.

I’ve shared part of that crazy process before. First I found out I had to do a mini-probate because my late husband’s dad had made him a co-owner some weeks before we were married which kept it out of our community property. There were back taxes; the city had a lien due to some unpaid utility charges—on and on. Finally I had legal ownership duly recorded. Now what? My eldest stepson had lived there gratis for many, many years but he had no legal claim since he had not chosen to do the process I had just done. So did I boot him out or what? In the end, I offered title to him for a reduced price over what it could have brought on the open market and he agreed. I was almost surprised but happy to avoid any bad scenes. Finally in mid March of 2019 I went over to Bisbee, we did the necessary paperwork and he handed me a cashier’s check for the agreed upon price. I pinched myself for a week—after driving home in an intermittent snow storm.

That changed the whole picture. It might really be possible…  Our search intensified and we zeroed in on the Benson area especially though still considering Kingman. In May Charlie came over driving RHM to do a look around. This part of the state was familiar to me after living here from 1970-73 and again from 1984 to 2008.  He had seen it briefly in passing and was drawn but needed a better exposure. He came back a bit discouraged, cutting short the plan to go on up to Mojave. Then almost at once another place came onto the multi-listings and he zipped back to check on it. This was the one!! It took time and a few more trips—papers to sign, inspections and many hoops to be cleared but we took possession on the 2^nd of July. Meanwhile we had a health issue with the oldest dog and ended up sending him to the Rainbow Bridge on Memorial Day. That is a tale for another time.

On July 11, the actual move began with the arrival of the first big trailer from ABF freight which now operates a do-it-yourself moving service called U-Pack. And that is where the going got tough and the tough really had to get going.  There were many days and nights when we each separately shook our heads, tossed and turned unable to sleep, and quietly raged, wept and cussed. While both trying to keep a good face for each other!! How in the name of all holy and unholy were we going to do this?  

The last sunrise at Alamo...

                        To be continued!!