It’s one we’ve lived in for the past twenty-two years.
Since then it’s been painted gray with black trim.
It’s not as big as it looks. The walls behind the back bench simply cover a storage area for the pressure washer, the lawn mower, and other stuff. We bought it in 2001, rented it for three years, then on June 26th, 2004, filled a U-Haul truck with half of what we took from Santa Rosa, then returned for the second half. It was an exhausting day for everyone, but that night we slept here.
And here’s where we slept June 25th.
1524 Dutton Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA
The Barn
We moved here in 1979, leaving twenty-six years later. We parked cars in the barn. On the right is the Acura Integra, a car that replaced our last Volvo (F.A.N.N.Y.) John named it after being told about dinner: “Fish Again, No, Never, Yuck.” A few other cars were sheltered behind the sheets, too, Casper (because we hid it behind the sheets), and a couple other BMWs, two of which sustained damages when Jadyne drove into the wrong sheeted bay. (In looking at the barn photo more closely I see that the Integra had already gone, replaced by BMW #1).
Jay was tired of the home business thing, and she knew that Dozens of Muslins could generate enough income to keep us financially afloat, so she expressed her wish to leave Santa Rosa, a place where she lived virtually all her life. We discarded nearby Sebastopol, Pacific Grove, and other places in California, before looking at the East Bay. She found our current home in an online search in 2001, arranged for an agent to show it, then picked me up at SFO after returning from Cincinnati. We were both captivated by the size of the lot, the trees, semi-isolation, and what we saw as a potential garden spot, arranging a bid to be delivered either that day or soon after.
Jadyne knew that I didn’t want to move. I had friends in Santa Rosa, racquetball at the Park Point Club, three-day a week golf outings at Bennett Valley, a familiarity with just about everything. “We only need to live here two years,” Jadyne said. but within two weeks I told her that I was already coming to like Rugby, and, well, here we are, twenty-two years later, still loving living here. No longer loving golf, racquetball, and not missing the life I left behind. At first it seemed so strange—college professors, not taco trucks, silence at night instead of low-riders cruising down Dutton. I asked my nephew Kevin (whose birthday is also June 26th) how Dutton and Juniperview (his Cincinnati home) differed. He replied, ‘Well, I never saw anyone ‘cuffed’ on Juniperview”).
And what we found isn’t what we have. Here’s our backyard in 2004, and here’s what we have today.
What was here
What’s here now