The Shkabara Family Adventures

As most of you already know, Irene’s mother died last year. This sad event disrupted our normal family activities and our annual story did not get published for 98. So this is a combined story for two years’ worth of news. You may note from the "home" logo at the top that this is also a trip story. Yes, we moved once again!

The Oregon winter caused bad shoulder pains for Irene. After many trips to the doctor, and even an MRI, a warmer climate seemed to be the only cure. While not yet planning to move, I learned of a position in Sonora, CA. Over Irene’s objections, I sent my application and was invited for an interview at Columbia College.

To Irene’s surprise, Sonora turned out to be a nice, quiet community with good services. Her mother liked Sonora, and wanted us to move there. The interview went well, but I did not get a job offer. I did learn that another position would be available in 1999 due to retirement.

1998 - Summer vacation finally arrived, and we were on our way south. We stopped in Monterey to visit my brother’s widow, Mura. She is now in a convalescent home, and this was our first chance to visit with her.

Next was Morro Bay and a quick visit to Los Angeles. Irene’s sister, Katja, heard of a great place in Nevada - Yerrington. Our trip itinerary was modified - we packed up Katja and her daughter Marina, and set off for Nevada.

We took highway 108 through Sonora and the high Sierra Mountain passes. There was still snow at the high elevations and the girls had fun playing in it. On the East side of the mountains, Irene fell in love with the clear waters of the Walker River that runs alongside US 395 for much of the way.

Yerrington turned out to be a fairly nice small town, but it lacked any endearing qualities to make us stay there longer. We continued north through the Nevada flatlands and rolling hills. Went past Pyramid Lake and the alkali flats beyond it. On entering California, we were greeted by the very charming small town of Eagleton. Not much there, but a pretty setting with lots of trees along the main drive.

Soon after, we drove into Cedarville. As much as Yerrington did not live up to our expectations, this small California town enchanted us. We wanted to stay the night there, but no motel rooms were to be found. With regret, we had to drive past Cedarville and on to Alturas for the night’s lodging.

After Alturas, we drove back to Grants Pass, driving through Klamath Falls along the way. As we started our descent towards Medford, Irene started to experience sneezing bouts from her allergies. Oh, did I mention her allergy problems in Oregon?

In late August 1998, we managed one more trip to visit with Irene’s mother, Ina. Also went to Monterey to visit Mura, but Ina did not feel well enough to make that trip. That was strange since Ina usually liked to go on trips.

After we got back, the transmission in our Mazda van acted up. A clogged valve was fixed by a transmission oil change, but it was a warning - the MPV had over 130, 000 miles on it. We sold the MPV together with the utility trailer that we had for it. Instead, Peter now drives a 4 wheel drive, red Toyota T100 pickup truck!

Bad news. We found out why Ina did not feel well. She went to the doctor and was diagnosed with uterine cancer. This was the beginning of the end. At first it was a visit to Stanford Medical Center for an exam by a specialist. Then followed the surgery at Stanford.

Irene spent part of September, and most of October and November shuttling between Grants Pass and Morro Bay. She first tried the train, but then air travel became the only practical option. Fog causes many flight delays in San Francisco during the winter, and some of her trips were very delayed and rather unpleasant.

By mid-November it became clear that Ina was not going to make it much longer. Irene was now staying in Morro Bay and Alexis and I planned to go down as soon as the Thanksgiving break came up. Ina knew that we were coming and somehow managed to hold on.

When Alexis and I visited her at the convalescent home, Ina managed to give Alexis a slight squeeze of her hand. This was surprising because otherwise Ina did not seem conscious of her surroundings. Ina died in the wee hours of the next day, November 27, 1998.

1999 - After Ina’s death, Irene felt she must adjust to Oregon - life seemed all too short now. Ironically, in January, Peter’s work situation suddenly deteriorated. Although he still enjoyed his classes and students, there was conflict with administrators outside of his department. Peter had not joined the union, and this may have been a cause of tension. We still are not sure of what caused the situation, but the weather told us to leave Oregon, and now the college was adding its own voice.

Right away, we put the house up for sale by owner. Selling time in Grants Pass can easily be a year, so we wanted to get started early. Surprise! One week till we got an offer, and what a strange coincidence the offer brought.

When we sold our house in Silver City, NM, the buyers were a retired couple. They wanted to buy our house, but first needed to clear up an offer that was still pending on another property. They also wanted to do a tax-free exchange. And that offer came about a week after we started advertising.

To make it short, the Grants Pass sale was a replay of Silver City! A retired couple needing to first clear up another pending offer and they wanted to do a tax-free exchange. There was a bonus for us. They did not want to move in till at least August, so we could sell the house and then rent back till we were ready to move! Was someone telling us to move from Oregon?

More strange things. In spring 1999, many openings for computer science instructors appeared. Not just jobs, but jobs at colleges that normally do not have an opening. There was Columbia College as we expected, but there was also Mendocino College in Ukiah, CA, College of the Siskiyous in Weed, CA, Dixie College in Saint George, UT, Mohave College in Kingman, AZ, Central Arizona College in Casa Grande, AZ, and even WNMU in Silver City, NM now seemed to have an acceptable position.

Details of the interview adventures may not be of interest to many of you. I give you the short version.

Applications went out to the colleges that were in nice places for us to live. Surprisingly, all of the applications resulted in invitations for an interview! In one case, the interviews were on consecutive days.

When the dust settled, it appeared that we would be heading back to New Mexico. We even made an offer on a house by telephone - based on our memory of the house from when we lived there. However, the relocation company that owned the house did not accept our offer so we made plans to visit Silver City for house hunting.

Since we were going all the way down to New Mexico, we decided to take a trailer load and put it into storage. This made use of our new pickup truck and took care of some awkward garage type of items. The trip down went fine, but after arrival, we got a message on our answering machine that Columbia College wanted Peter to come for an interview - sort of late in the game. However, Peter was to be the only candidate!

There were other strange events. For some reason, the contract from WNMU was not prepared properly and I had not signed it yet. Both positions had uncertainties. Columbia was a one-year assignment because it came so late in the term. I would need to reapply the following year. However, Silver City had an uncertain pay schedule and it too was a somewhat tenuous. What was a body to do?

We left Silver City heading for Sonora. Did a quick real estate search there and continued for home in Grants Pass to prepare for the interview. Had the interview two days later; got a job offer; had a difficult decision to make. Was Sonora or Silver City to be our next home?

Peter had a very difficult time of it. Alexis did not want to move from Grants Pass; Irene would go along with either one - Ina had wanted us to move to Sonora and kept asking about it till the end. We knew the environment in Silver City, but the subjects to be taught at Columbia were more in line with what Peter likes. The pay scale is higher in California, but so is the cost of living!

With great sadness, I called my boss, C.J. at WNMU in Silver City, and told him that I would not be coming. Having done so, I felt a great relief in having made the right decision. That was on Friday. By Monday, the certainty was gone, and doubts were all over the place. Had I made a wrong decision?

Tuesday morning it was time to get the U-Haul truck to start loading. We were moving to our new house in Jamestown. On the way to U-Haul, I turned back and told Irene that I could not go through with it - I made a mistake.

I went so far as to call C.J. again and see if things could be patched up. He told me that I needed to give a full commitment then and there, otherwise he had someone else to do the job. Somehow I felt a relief hearing that C.J. had an alternative - I must not want that job that bad. So it was to be Jamestown after all.

We moved to Jamestown at the end of July. The house was brand new and not quite finished yet. Our things that were in storage in Silver City were brought to Jamestown by Carl, who lives in Silver City and moved us to Grants Pass two years earlier.

Alexis made cheerleader in Grants Pass, but we needed to move. I arranged for her to try out in Silver City, and she made it, but we did not move there. It was too late to get her into cheerleading at Sonora High, but we did send her to cheerleading camp with the Sonora team.

It all seemed to be working out, but problems loomed. I won’t go into details of how stressful Alexis made life for us. She was very unhappy with being taken from Grants Pass, and she took every opportunity to let us know.

Poor Tolia. Alexis’ orange tabby was hit by a car just barely a week after getting here. We buried him. He is gone but not forgotten. Tolia was a good cat.

After many months went by, Alexis expressed a desire for a kitten. Just before Halloween, Irene went with Alexis to the humane society and came back with barely three pounds of black fur. His name is Shadow.

At first he was a sickly kitten. He kept sneezing and his nose was runny. At one point, Irene wondered if Shadow was going to make it or not. Now he is fine; weighs in at 4 3/4 pounds and gets into everything!

Our new house has an open field behind it. There is a white horse that roams in that field. So now we have three dogs, a black cat, and a horse! Of course, the horse is not actually ours, but Irene gives him apple cores, carrots and other greens as they become available from the kitchen.

The neighbors are great. It is a very pleasant and friendly community. The weather is very good too. We are certain that Ina is watching and she approves.

Oh, yes. Our new address:

Peter, Irene and Alexis Shkabara
17684 Rolling Oaks Drive
Jamestown, CA 95327-9222
209 984-0428