New Daze

All the unpacked boxes left my condo this week. The photos and memorabilia sit and hang in their new spots on different furniture and walls. The dishes, glasses, cutlery and kitchen aid utensils nestle in new cupboards and drawers. As I look at them in their new surroundings I find nearly all come from the area I've moved back to, just a 10 year void of lost to find the right place to show themselves off. Most of them were made to feel uncomfortable in the houses I occupied in Bakersfield, even the few old family photos of the dearly departed DNA providers.

I meant to write quite a bit about the process of Splitsville as it was unfolding in December and January. However, my ex voiced her discomfort at seeing my thought process in print at the time, and I was busy collecting my shit and getting new a place many miles away from the location where my immediate familial woes haunted me daily. And, maybe that was a good thing. Gives a guy a little perspective on matters, which helps avoid those instantaneous outbursts that always seem to come back and bite with ferocity.

Now, nearly 300 miles removed from the old homestead and the sentient beings I cared for during a lost 10 years in the southern San Joaquin Valley, nestled in my new modern facility here in Sacramento County with all the requisite appointments I dust off the old blog today.

I got lucky. In early January a chance hook-up at a mobile park facility in Rocklin, very close to my oldest son's apartment where I was crashing at night after spending the days searching for a new place to live, provided me a fabulous real estate agent.  I thought the sign in front of the mobile home was an office sign for a Century 21 real estate agent. The sign was much larger than most of the others planted before the properties in the park that were for sale, and I was finding trying out various agents by phone to meet up with at the many locations I had scouted was becoming more problematic and less fruitful by the day. I was getting low on patience, and decided to drive over to that office and meet this agent to handle my buyer's side of this business.

As I got out of the car and walked up to the mobile home a grey haired gentleman greeted me and put away his rake. He asked if I had come to see the place. I immediately realized my mistake in thinking this was an office, and that this was just another older mobile home on the market. Quandary. What to do now? I decided to go with the flow and take the tour.

Charlie showed me his landscaped yard with very large granite stones planted surrounding mature and well trimmed trees with the view of the park's community pool and the lush vegetation highlighting the western view from his porch. The porch was sturdy and level, constructed of solid wood planking. Charlie had done the work by himself, was good with tools and justifiably proud of getting the porch right. It was pleasant.

We went inside and took a look at his kitchen work and a large room right off the porch he always wanted as a bedroom with windows that offered just the right amount of breeze to cool off the hot summer days the valley is known for. That bedroom was never going to happen, he mentioned, now that he had to move to Wyoming and care for an ailing family member where his wife was currently doing the duty.  That was my cue to let him know that caring for an aged father was what probably helped bring my marriage to an inglorious end and why I was here searching for a new spot in the sun. Charlie commiserated. He'd been through divorce.

As we kicked around the problems of being responsible we entered a very large living room. You could tell a lot of the furniture had already been moved out by the imprints left in the carpet from where they sat for years. No amount of vacuum cleaner bristles motoring over that carpet was going to bring the spring back in those fibers. In the corner of the room I spied a banjo and a small amplifier, and offered up how difficult a stringed instrument the banjo was for me to play when I tried many years ago. All of a sudden we were discussing our guitars, old places and faces we both knew.

Charlie was a pro player, skilled in every Chet Atkins lick and then some. I've played for most of my life with a few friends and on my lonesome, but always stuck with it and always felt great whenever I played. He showed me his pride and joy, two top-of-the-line Gretsch Chet Atkins models from the 1950s that looked brand new and yet has obviously been played thoroughly over the years. His hands, rough from wood and mason work over the years still glided over the frets and strings as he showed off some fine chops. He let me play the two for a bit, and I fumbled and stumbled showing my little pulls, hammers and modest understanding of the Mel Bay chord book.

Had a great time in the little over an hour I spent with Charlie in his place, but had to go. He told me to contact his agent, DJ, and that the price on the place was flexible. Sometimes you don't want to think too hard on things. When the fates show you clear signals you just follow those signposts and you'll be alright. Here was a musician (house-flipper when a money crunch appeared on the scene) with an agent named DJ talking to a lost soul from Tower Records who had been a deejay in a galaxy far away now trying to find a new home.

I made the call to DJ, who offered to meet me on the following day at the mobile home park in Rocklin. One of the best calls I've ever made. We hit it off in the park. She's a few years older than I am, and has been in the real estate biz for over 20 years, which says something given the tremendous ups and downs the industry has seen over the past two decades. She clued me in, and most fortunately for me she actually sold houses, unlike about 75% of the agents who have their pictures on the various properties scattered throughout the vast real estate world of the US and have yet to close a deal. 

She told me to forget the mobile home parks and concentrate on something that will actually give a return on the investment I make. The mobile homes are like buying used cars. Once you've spent the money they depreciate faster than VHS tapes. You're a slave to the park's rents and can have the park sold and forced to move at a moment's notice. We now concentrated on condominiums and select single family homes in specific zip codes, which she felt had the best current value with an eye toward future appreciation.

I finally felt after two full months of trekking up the valley 300 miles to then drive all over the greater Sacramento area I was beginning to see something positive happen, and that my new place was right around the corner.  DJ put me in touch with Karl at Alpine Mortgage. He is a very bright and wonderful loan professional who covered all the mortgage aspects of my prospective move, and made me feel like human being throughout the long, and many times tedious road.

I mention this because I had gone to my bank in Bakersfield to get a pre-approval letter done in very early January, and the guy I talked with, who seemed very nice, never got back to me until the day I closed escrow on my new little home in mid-March. Sums up my time in Bakersfield quite well. Really, about the only thing I got out of my 10 years in Bakersfield was the money I got for selling my half of my parents old home to my ex after doing all the estate work and making sure my dad's ashes ended up in the niche next to my mom's. 

And so, this weekend marks 3 weeks in my new location here nestled north of Highway 80 and right next to Roseville. Not where I expected to be when I found out that living with me was such a hardship for the person I loved these past 20 years, but a big improvement on living in a mobile home on the grounds of a trailer-park paying rent on a space that is as high as my current fixed mortgage payment and HOA dues combined.

In days, weeks and months going forward I'll be be back at this blog outpost more frequently than the past couple of years have allowed me. Writing helps unwind a lot of the knots that I've been carrying around with me for awhile. Guitars help, too. If you're curious I'll share here. If not, there are lots of other spaces and places for good souls to seek out on the vast web.

As I close this small chapter, I sure miss my cats and dog, who were such loyal and devoted friends for all the turbulent years spent at the bottom of the Central Valley. Love you always, Bo Kitty, Darby, Weebs, Musette, Bob and Brin-Brin.