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Last year we asked our friend, Anne, who seems
to know things, “What do you foresee for 2021?” She answered
something like “It’ll be just as strange as 2020.” Nah, couldn’t
be! Things looked so giddily bright when, around December 14th,
a gleaming new COVID vaccine strutted forth to armor our front-line
healthcare professionals. Everything would be made safe, and we could
return to normal. Sure, we figured, some distant day, age, health, and
finances would compel us to head for the coast like Bilbo and Galadriel
(to the “Grey Havens”) – maybe in five or ten years. Any sooner
was unthinkable – it’d take something really improbable, like, say,
a pandemic, global climate change, or loss of income…something like
that. Right. We have all three. Thus, we began to entertain thoughts of
selling our house – but those thoughts were soon interrupted.
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WINDEMIC
Lucky
it was only 100 mph winds, that January 19th – at
least there wasn’t a fire. Around midnight Diane said, “Hey
Tom, I think something’s going on out there.” For hours we
boggled, gaped and cowered amid thundering wind and booming of
giant falling trees – trees that could slice a house. Sun up,
wind down, electricity out, generator on, we edged outside to peer
at the mess.
Tree on left blocking
road - narrowly missed the propane tank.
(Photo on right) the
severed top of a power pole artistically suspended over Forest
Drive.
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Deck
used to extend to the right - smashed along with two fences. This
massive, tall fir missed our generator by inches, while we
hunkered inside well away from the windows. 
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The
fir tree blocking the road in the foreground was forced down when the
cedar behind it fell (you can see the cedar's root-ball on the left).
The cedar came to rest on top of the fir that had smashed through our
deck (you can see its branches up against the house and extending
through the remains of the fence on the right.
Forests overcrowded by
drought-weakened, beetle-ravaged trees had, in 2020, 2018, and 2017,
brought fire and choking smoke to Wawona’s doorstep; now thousands of
them had fallen all over Wawona and across the Sierra. Amazingly no
injuries, but several houses and cars were smashed.
Soon after came a whopping
snow storm, just in time to stymie the efforts of utility repair crews.
Confined to our house by downed trees, powerlines, and snow, we rationed
our food and propane. Day-9, the fallen tree blocking our driveway was
removed in time for Diane to get to her first COVID vaccination. Day-10,
our propane tank (which fuels the generator) ran dry. We dined on
freeze-dried backpacker’s meals heated with a camp stove on the front
porch. Day-12, power was restored, and the next day I coaxed the propane
truck driver up the one-mile narrowly-plowed road to fill our tank. Not
until Day-27 was internet restored.
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CHANGE
Convinced by the
mounting indications of risk to health and home, we resumed the
decision-making process that led to selling our beloved WawonaMoon
– our dream-home in Wawona – and moving closer to good medical
care in a land that has not been forsaken by homeowners’
insurance companies. Employing two charming and expert real estate
agents, we listed WawonaMoon on May 15, while Diane logged
countless internet hours finding properties for us to visit. We
toyed with buying a tiny cabin nearby with a lower-priced house on
the coast, but it didn’t work out. After several rejected
offers, we learned that in this competitive market we would first
have to sell our house, and then make a full-cash offer.
Dear friends Carol and Scott let us use their vacant condo as a
base of operations during the process.
The Wawona Hotel
opened June 10th with a skeleton crew. The pool and
golf course were closed, the dining room service reduced to a
“no-touch” buffet, and four of the hotel’s six buildings
were still closed for electrical repairs. The limited capacity did
not yet justify my returning to work.
We
opened escrow on WawonaMoon June 24th, and were lucky
to find a place to rent on the coast. July was all about preparing
to move – Diane packing and marking endless boxes, me taking
truckloads to local thrift-stores. August 18th, we
observed Diane’s birthday and the completion of our move, with a
take-out dinner in the car overlooking the ocean from Ragged
Point.
Mother & child -
elephant seals, near San Simeon
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Listing
Brochure (no, we didn't get our asking price).
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Tioga
Pass 
Mono
Lake
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Country
road near Raymond, CA
With only a few sticks
of portable furniture left in WawonaMoon, we savored the few
remaining weeks in the home of our hearts, visiting favorite
trails, swimming holes, and drives to the high country and eastern
Sierra.
Given Diane’s and
my health vulnerabilities, our doctor urged me to not perform
indoors, so the question was, how do I safely resume work? We
considered my performing outside on the verandah with electric
piano, but during the summer the deck was usually crowded. In my very
vocal and interactive performances, I always enjoy the
up-close camaraderie that our guests have come to expect. In the
park, people outside in crowded places are required to be caringly
masked and distanced, ensuring that nobody feels threatened or
unsafe. Amid these circumstances, it still wasn't quite time for
my return.
But on August 23, I
began a series of four free outdoor performances on the porch of
Hill’s Studio, adjacent to the hotel, courtesy of the good folks
of the National Park Service – especially Ranger Adam Ramsey,
for whom I signed on as a volunteer. Physically distanced from the
audience, I was able to satisfy both NPS and concessionaire
concerns that I could safely entertain the hotel guests in this
way.
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Friday, September 17,
escrow closed and we bid a tearful goodbye to WawonaMoon. Heavy smoke that day from a nearby forest fire
gave us the feeling that Wawona was gently urging us along for our
own good.
That night at our friends’ Wawona cabin (while they were away),
Diane had another look online at a tiny two-bedroom 1-bath house
on the central California coast. Saturday, while we stood looking
at lower Chilnualna Fall, we phoned our agent and arranged to see
the house the next day and decided, if it all worked out, that we
would name the house “Chilnualna.” Exactly three weeks after
selling WawonaMoon, we closed escrow on Chilnualna. We plan to
move in after remodeling is finished.
Meanwhile, I was
called back to work at the Wawona Hotel for their
holiday-opening-night December 18th (outside, on the
veranda) – hopefully a good sign of things to come. We’re
assured they want me back in the spring, but it will depend on the
availability of suitable housing. We’ve considered buying a
Scamp trailer (haulable by our Subaru) for our seasonal home in
Wawona, but they have a minimum six-month waiting list, and it’s
not certain whether the NPS or the concessionaire can provide us a
place to park it. We’ll see how things play out over the coming
year.
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Tom
performing at Hill's Studio - Wawona Hotel peaking around the trees on
the left.
PASSINGS
This
past year we bade goodbye to a dear friend from our Oakhurst days,
Shirley Young. Also Dee Schneider, from whom we bought our former home
in Fish Camp, and Dale Hewlett who lived next door to us there, and to
Diane’s cousins Jeannie Hinman and Eddie Wood. Jeannie and Diane were
like sisters, and in Jeannie’s last year they had joyful, epic (four
hours was common!) weekly phone-visits, right up to the end. At the
beginning of this year (2022) we lost Bud Friedman, who welcomed Tom
into his home and family so many years ago.
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From the sacred
sayings of Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road,
take it.” We now have pockets full of forks. For 2022, we wish
you all the silverware of your dreams, and plenty of warmth and
love.
Tom & Diane Bopp
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