The Loose Cannon: Mirrors, memories and 20/20 hindsight

It was a beautiful Saturday morning when I decided to take a walk through town. As I strolled, I ruminated on what I might write about for my next column.

As I passed by the playground at Yountville Park in the north end of town, there was a young dad there with his son doing his best to make his side of the teeter-totter work opposite his little guy. There was a quote on his shirt that I had never seen before and I loved it. “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” I researched it when I got home:

Meaning and Context

The quote is a metaphor for recognizing the value of something only when it is no longer available. In Franklin’s time, “the well” could symbolize resources, opportunities, or even life itself and “water” represents the things we often take for granted. The lesson is that scarcity or loss forces us to appreciate what we had before.

I was moved both by the simplicity and the complexity of the quote and wanted to share it.

Hopefully you thought that about the Yountville Sun when it went away.

Well, the Sun is back, and I hope you’ll consider supporting your hometown newspaper!

Moving on:

So, I continued my stroll and found a place to sit near Susan the Apache’s grave in the cemetery and ponder topics. It felt appropriate since two of my favorite past columns were about Susan.

On my way through town, I had walked by and was reminded of a house that I had considered buying around 50 years ago.

In the mid-1970s my first wife (to be) and I were renting a house in St. Helena and hoping to buy a home somewhere in the valley. She had an office job in Napa, and I was working as a journeyman carpenter for an upvalley high-end contractor.

My future in-laws offered to loan us the down payment if we wanted to buy a house. Of course, it had to be documented as a “gift” but we (eventually) had a payment booklet and never missed a payment.

Anyway, we thought we could afford a house worth $40,000. So, we contacted a real estate agent, and the search was on. We weren’t having a lot of luck finding a place in St .Helena or Napa that we liked and would fit our budget. However, the agent called us and said there was a house in Yountville we should look at.

Yountville?

Did we really want to consider living in Yountville?

Small, two bedrooms and one bath, and then she said, “It‘s only $30,000.”

Well, at that price, we decided to take a look. Of course, with Yountville’s reputation at that time, we’d have to make sure the door locks were very good.

The house it didn’t have much “curb appeal,” but it had potential if we were willing to do some repair work and paint. We were both up for that. We had more energy than money.

The family did not vacate the house for our visit. As we walked through the living room the four of them were sitting there watching TV, and we met them and apologized for interrupting their day.

As I recall, the kitchen and single bathroom were outdated but acceptable as was the second bedroom. Then we went into the master bedroom. I hesitate to call it a master bedroom because it wasn’t very big, but that wasn’t what got our attention.

There were mirrors.

Everywhere.

Mirror on the door.

Bigger mirrors on the walls.

Biggest mirrors on the ceiling.

I don’t think any of us made eye contact as we surveyed the room. But then we had to leave the house and pass by the entire family again and thank them one more time. That was one of life’s more memorable and awkward moments.

Now logically, I’ll admit that it shouldn’t have mattered how attractive the couple was. But sadly, it did factor into my runaway imagination, and I couldn’t shake the images.

That was back then. I’ve since matured. For a deal that good today, I would just remove the mirrors and promptly and conveniently forget they were ever there. I’ve mastered forgetting things these days. It just came naturally to me with time.

Had they removed those mirrors before our visit, I think we might have bought the home. But they didn’t and we didn’t.

This was probably the biggest financial mistake I ever made. A home in Yountville for $30,000. Who knew?

Just over 25 years later, I paid over 10 times that to buy a home in Yountville.

As the saying goes, “Hindsight is 20/20.”