THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF TWO BONE WEARY TRAVELLERS – 2005

I sit here in front of my typewriter at 6:00AM, staring in and looking for inspiration. None jumps out at me. I am coming to the realization, that as we aged, our life became far less exciting than it once might have been. It is difficult, now, to remember interesting or exciting times, that anyone other than myself or Deysi would care to read. JimboRed had nowhere near the capacity to get in trouble as he aged. As always, Deysi remained forever vigilant, to ensure that I never strayed to far from “the path”. She instinctively knew what was “right and wrong”; what a man should be able to repair around the house, or on the car, how a man should dress, behave, think, and just how much a man should eat, or drink. And all of that knowledge formed “the path”. She spends much of her retirement years making sure Ol’ JimboRed walks the centre of that path.

So, once again, at the risk of boring everyone, I will continue a brief description of what our early years of retirement looked like. I can hear everyone screaming out, “Who Cares!” In the summer of 2005, Deysi and I made a decision to move one last time in our lives. We had always had our eyes to the west, longing for the sun and sand. As weary of moving, as we might have been, once we realized that Calgary was not to be our final resting place, we pumped ourselves up once again to head west. (Of course with us it was never quite that easy, as you will see below). As was always the case with us, we had absolutely no idea where we were going or how it would play out. We had decided to go wherever we had to, to find our forever home. I might say, as things turned out, we made it to the very western boundaries of Canada, but not before a false start.

In our minds we had some vague ideas of maybe finding a small business that we could run, while still enjoying our time of retirement. I think for Deysi, she had an idea of something to keep me occupied and out of trouble. I must say that thoughts of having some sort of retirement business were not new. For the previous 2-3 years, while still working, we had looked into some form of activity, to keep us from feeling guilty about our early freedom from work. You might wonder why we would feel guilty about leaving work as soon as we possibly could. It is hard to explain, but those feelings were present when we set our sights on freedom. And for that matter, those feelings are still with us, sometimes, even now. Usually a good nap, is enough to chase them away, and enough to let us get back to fun, fun, fun.

I am going to describe a couple of those ventures, that we came close to being caught up in. We were barely, able to escape their clutches. I know that anything we could have found, even the smallest occupation, would have consumed me 100% of the time. Shortly after dabbling in a venture, I would have been neck deep, and back to the craziness that was our life when I worked. For me, there was no filter, it either meant work at full throttle, or stop at full brake. There was no middle ground to be had. And I think we both already realized that. So, maybe our searching for a retirement job, was only pretend. Maybe we were going thru the motions because we thought we were supposed to.

One of the first things we looked into was a business that fed into one of my hobbies. Golf! Yup, one day we stumbled across a golf course for sale, on the Trans Canada Highway, about 25 miles east of Winnipeg. It immediately got us interested. After all, I thought, you don’t have to be good at the game to own a course. I studied this opportunity for a long time. Made contact with the owner. Expressed our interest and found out a lot about it. The course was a 27 hole layout on 175 acres. There was enough land for a major housing development, if that ever became an interest. I looked at it from every angle. My biggest roadblock in “pulling the trigger” on this property was my own lack of confidence in whether I could put the effort into it that it would require.

As I got more deep into the analysis, I started to have doubts as to location, amount of investment, and the length of the golf season. Things like, only being able to open 5 months (maybe), each year and then facing Manitoba winter for 7. I might say, as bad as it was in Alberta over the winter, I believe Manitoba was even worse. In addition the summers out there are plagued with zillions of mosquitos, black flies and other evil little beasts. I knew also that my three investors would offer nothing in the way of help, other than some funds. So the long and short is, that I was never ready to make a commitment. However, come summer, 2005, after we arrived in Calgary, I was finally ready to dive in.

We contacted the owner and made an appointment to come out and see the course in the early weeks of the summer. He was excited. A few weeks later we packed our stuff and were about to head east. Before we departed, I picked up the phone and made a call to the owner, to tell him we were on our way. There was a long pause on the phone and then he said, “I sold the course last week, so don’t waste your time coming. Thank you for your interest”. It had been a long while, since I had been kicked in the nutsack. With that, we just sat in our car looking at each other with no destination in mind. Once again, JimboRed, had procrastinated his way out of an opportunity. “Geezus”, I thought, “I don’t know whether this is a curse or a blessing.” And, I guess, will never know the answer too that question!

Now with a fully loaded car and no place to go, we decided that the time had come to go west and see what lay in that direction. So with a mixture of feelings, both regret and relief, we headed off. We left Calgary headed south, towards the equator and the sun. At the southern boarder of Canada we turned sharp right and headed into the Rockies. We spent a couple of days looking around. And snooped around some tourist sights. We stopped to visit some friends in southern BC. With nowhere that really piqued our interest in settling, we continued west. Until arriving at the south end of the Okanagan Valley near a place called Osoyos. We were only a few miles north of the US border, and Washington State when we decided to stop and have a serious look at the area.

the Osoyos area was the heart of the wine country in Canada, if that is not an oxymoron. From there north, into the Penticton area, vineyards and orchards abounded. It was an area of “nearly” the best climate you could find in Canada. We contacted a realtor and asked to look at a few properties that we could use to produce wine or other types of fruit. I won’t bore you with details, however she did show us a couple of vineyards and wineries. One that surely stirred my interest. Upon seeing it, I immediately knew, here is something I was well qualified to do. After all, I considered myself a near expert on alcohol. Hadn’t I drank hundreds of gallons of the stuff, all over the world, in my time? “Who knows that product better than me,” I asked? Deysi just quietly accompanied me, but I am sure she felt a shiver in her bones, when thinking of turning Ol’ Jimbored loose with an unending supply of booze, and the ability to grow himself more.

My enthusiasm was unbridled. I could see myself as this large landowner with my picture plastered on bottles of wine all over the world. Right there, a name was formed for my product. It was like a revelation, “I will name my wine JimboRed and JimboWhite!” Now with the branding issue settled, we dove into the details. I met with the owner, an aged hippy type, with skin like well tanned leather. He told me, that their’s was a 10 year plan. They bought the vineyard and promised themselves, that in ten years they would move to Mexico and retire. It had now been 15 years and he was ready to go. After looking me up and down, the first thing he said was, “if you are thinking of buying this place for a retirement hobby, FORGET IT!” “This business requires work everyday for 365 days per year.” ” In each month of the year, there is something that needs done.” Well, wasn’t he a little ray of sunshine!

I immediately thought of my three investors. If each of us committed three months, per year, to the business, then it would not be too demanding on any one of us. I made a call, to present my idea. I might say it was met with, less than enthusiasm. You see, although there was some money available, to put JimboRed back in the workforce, that money did not mean any one of these guys were getting back into the workforce, themselves. The idea of a vineyard and winery, rang some bells for each of them. They envisioned themselves sitting on the veranda, overlooking the property, with a glass of Jimbored in hand, much like the Gallo Brothers of California. Meanwhile Ol’ JimboRed would be seen out in the vineyard riding his tractor while pruning, picking and plucking, all the while with a rake stuck in his butt and raking up leaves along the way.

You might say, that put the damper on any thoughts we had of being wine producers. With that we climbed back in our car and continued west. After a few more days of snooping around in the interior of BC, we finally arrived at the ocean. Our first stop was in a place called Richmond, which is attached to the south end of Vancouver. At first look, I had to shake my head and register what I was seeing. “What the hell”, I thought? “Have we overshot the west coast and missed Canada altogether?” I knuckled my eyes and looked again. To my amazement all of the street signs and every one of the building signs were in Chinese! I was dumbfounded. The only thing I could recognize, looking down the street, was the Golden Arches, they still had a big M on them. I must say we both stood there, mouths agape, trying to fathom what we had just seen.

Standing there, unable to make out anything in writing, reminded me of a very famous prediction from my brother many years earlier. During a phone conversation while we were in South Africa, let’s say 1988 or so, he updated the Canadian news for us, like this. He said, “well everything is ok here”. “The city of Banff has just changed all of the street signs into Japanese”! “It won’t be long now”, he added, “before we’ll all be humping little oriental guys around in rickshaws!” Of course, at the time, I just snorted and put it down to my brother, just being his outrageous self. Now there I was, about 25 years later, standing in Richmond and unable to read a sign. Hmmm, how about a rickshaw business for our retirement. If only I could convince Deysi to pull that mini-cab, while running. I didn’t ask, I already knew the answer.

Before giving up our search along the coast of BC, we took a side trip and diverted our travel, north along the coast, towards Whistler. Although we never made it there on this trip, we did go there in the future. This time we were house hunting and we knew that any place called a ski resort was not where we were going to settle. We were trying to avoid snow and cold, not get any nearer to it. In any event we drove north along the coast to a place called Squamish. Although very picturesque, it did not “check our boxes” for surf, sand and golf. What sticks in my mind of this place is a very large ocean port and a spectacular waterfall dropping hundreds of feet from the escarpment into the ocean. We came, we looked, ate seafood, and then checked this destination from our list. Back to Vancouver we went. We were quickly running out of places to look, in Canada.

That meant, once again we were in the car and headed further west. We were quickly running out of Canada. All that was left, was Vancouver Island, about 35 kilometres from the western edge of Vancouver. Hell, we had come this far. We decided to go for a look. Onto the ferry we got. There started a long “hate affair” with transport between Vancouver Island and the mainland, or vice versa. If you manage to make the first ferry after you arrive, which is about a 50/50 chance, then you are in for the most boring 2-1/2 hours of 10 km per hour boat ride, that you will ever experience. The only thing to do is run upstairs, as soon as you park and line up in the food line. There you will be guaranteed to be presented with some of the worst fast food you can imagine. However, you will be charged as if in a 5 star Michelin restaurant.

As much as Victoria sounds like we wandered there by accident, it was far from that. Years earlier, say mid 90’s, accompanied by Ange, we had visited the Island and Deysi had fallen in love with Victoria. So returning here, while searching for a place to retire, was not quite random. She always remembered our visit here. Living by the ocean, close to Bucharest Gardens and eating seafood every day, appealed to her retirement visions. I think, in some ways, living by the water, reminded her of her happiest days in Peru. Our trips to Mollendo and Mehia, at the beach were legendary. Thinking back, it now seems my wandering around, looking for paradise, might not have been so random. She may have been patiently guiding me to this destination. And all along, I just thought I was in charge!

Of course, not once have I ever missed that Ferry, fast food, line up! In fact try as I might, I don’t think I have ever beat Deysi into the lineup. She knows all the shortcuts! How many times have we roundly abused ourselves for not having the will power to resist that nasty, over-priced food? In any event we made it to Vancouver Island and the city of Victoria. We were so happy! It looked as if we had finally “arrived”! We scouted around a bit. The city suited us immensely. Not too big, about 250,000 people, yet big enough to provide Deysi with enough shops to satisfy her cravings. The climate was wonderful (remember you are still in Canada, so “wonderful” might be a stretch). Victoria was surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean. We both took a deep breath of salt air and set out to find a house.

As it came to pass, our house hunting in Victoria was short lived. We found a realtor and set out to look at homes. Somehow, I think we must have asked them to show us a house around $400,000. What we were shown was staggering. For $400,000, they showed us the cheapest listing, at that time, in Victoria. As we drove up to the front, Deysi is looking at me with that, “are you crazy JimboRed”, look of hers. She breathes in my ear, “I’m not even going into that house!” My god was it bad. It made some of Deysi’s “little fixer uppers”, of times gone past, look not too bad. It may have been a total of about 300 square feet, half of which you would not want to step you foot on. The lot size might have been 4000 square feet, of overgrown wasteland.

There was a dark and nasty looking hole in the floor, near the entrance which apparently lead to a basement, or more likely a dungeon. When I asked Deysi, politely if she wanted to go down for a look see, she visibly shrunk away from me and shuddered. It had a floor covering or indeterminate origin. It could have been petrified woods, desiccated beef jerky, or some kind of carpeting that had previously been laid in the floor of an animal enclosure. Unbelievable comes to mind. There appeared to be only one solution for fixing this house. You would need to take about 100 pounds of TNT and blow it to smithereens. Then start over. We scrambled away from there as quickly as we could.

We now realized, that it wasn’t just Calgary that had outrageous house prices, but also Vancouver and Victoria. Now we decided that we would continue our exploration of the Island and look northward along the coast. As we stopped in each city, town or village on our trip along the coast, we noticed real estate prices, softening. It seemed like that at each small community centre, north of Victoria, housing prices dropped about $25K. We looked and explored. As the days passed, more and more we realized that we had finally found our destination for retirement in Canada. Finally, one fine day, we arrived in Courtenay. I believe, for both of us, this was about as far north, on the island, as we were going.

We snooped around, turned over a few rocks, and ultimately found a place to reside, at a price we could probably afford. Finally, after 35 years, on the road, we knew that we would move no further. We had found our final resting place. Deysi has clearly stated, many times, that she would never leave this place. And to this day, 18 years later, that has proven true. Finally we could let the adventures begin. We had located, what is the best climate in Canada. There have been years where we have played golf, for 12 months, and a few where some snow or frost kept us away for a few days. I guess my gauge on how the climate is in any one location, is whether or not you can golf in every month. I used to listen to the weather forecast, to determine how it was outside. Now I just check to see if the golf course is open.

So like, land crabs, we scuttled back to Calgary, to pack up, one last time, and head into the sunset. In early 2006, just after New Year we made an offer on the home we had seen in Courtenay. We had a few more months in Calgary, but after this trip we knew where we were going to rest our bones, finally. One last packing, and in early June we departed for Vancouver Island. As it turned out it was good that we found a fairly large place. After all we still had 25 years of accumulated “treasures” from all of our moves. We did one final cleanup of our stuff and as always, my stuff seemed to be the least worthy of making the “Final Cut”. At this point, I might say, that if I haven’t already bored you to the state of crying, then just stay tuned I have even worse to come. The old brain is starting too chug out memories once again. Oh, you lucky people!