In the year or so before he died, Pete had ordered a large amount of dried and sealed foods, in preparation for the calamity that was said to be coming in the year 2000. The news was that all the nation's computers had been set with COBOL programming that was written in such a way that the date 2000 would cause shutdowns of computer operations and banks, businesses and government agencies would not be able to function. Scenarios of panic and social chaos were being spread about everywhere. People were afraid. So he ordered sacks of flour, rice, beans, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and other foodstuffs to get us through whatever might come. Some months after he died, a truck delivered all these things. I had them stacked in the entry room, where they sat unused. In the last month of 1999, I was staying half the time in the little house in Sun City that I had inherited from my husband and his mother. I bought ten 5 gallon gas containers, put them in the bed of the truck, and had them filled at a local gas station. I unloaded them all and put them in the storage building in the back yard of the Sun City house. I kept the door of the building open a bit to be sure any gas fumes would not get too strong inside. Then the holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas came. This was the first Christmas without Pete, and it was lonely indeed. I took long walks, and felt the loneliness of a planet full of people but being so isolated from them all. The Christmas just before he passed away and this Christmas were two of the saddest times in my life. People were buying gifts, gathering with their families, going out to dinner and to parties. I was wounded deeply. I said to my friends, if my psychogical wounds were translated to physical ones, I would be seen lying on the ground with my arms and legs cut off.
I bought my self a gold heart charm, one that was a heart with a hole in the center of it. It fit my sentiments, as my heart did in fact have a huge hole in it, one that would remain the rest of my life. By this time, I was already embroiled in problems with Yan Jun. He asked me to help him find a new warehouse, as the business had a much larger inventory now. He asked for my approval of one he looked at in Chino. It was 8000 sq. ft. with two offices. He then agreed that Pete's brother Andrew could do some remodeling of the interior and could also become our distributor for New Mexico, where Andrew wanted to move. I also hired Dean Barrett, Pete's son-in-law, to take Pete's place as sales manager. As it turned out, they began to hold meetings without including me and had even had a dinner gathering at Dean's house without even telling me of it. I sensed a conspiracy to cut me out of the business. I called the bank where the business account was, and from a gut feeling, asked if any sizeable checks had been written lately. The bank person told me that in fact that 15 checks had been written in the recent months, with amounts from $10,000 to $60,000, for a total of over $300,000. Yan Jun had drained the account and left only a few thousand remaining. During that call, Yan Jun's wife overheard me, and came rushing over to me, and tried to grab the phone out of my hand. I was told by the attorney to get out of the warehouse at once, for my safety.
I had on another occasion gone to the warehouse and seen Dean sitting at the desk I owned, using the computer I owned, searching online for a luxury car to lease. I told him he was fired, I unplugged the computer and took it out to the truck. I told him he was a thief. I knew he, my brother in law Andrew, and Yan Jun were planning to take the business away from me. I also knew that there would be little I could do to stop it, as I was in such grief, was working full time and had little cash to fight a legal battle. So I hired the attorney to negotiate a buy out for me. I got a pittance of the worth of the business, about $90,000. It had made over half a million that year. I knew I had to take what I could get and walk away from it. So I lost not only the love of my life, but all that we had both worked so hard to build together. Life could be joyous, but it also could be mean.
The New Year 2000 came and I was glad to just be alive. I had weathered all of the tragedy, and sat on New Years Eve in the Sun City house. I was grateful to have that house. It was a refuge. I watched and tape recorded all the around the world celebrations of the millenium. Australia's was the most beautiful, with performances flavored by the aboriginal culture and its spirit of mystery. Every country had a musical and dance performance that was extraordinary. It was a magical evening and day. I went out to newstands and bought about 20 newspapers of the first day of the new millenium. They are in storage still and may someday have value to historical collectors.
That following spring I learned that the county had changed the zone on my Gavilan land to RA-10 from RA-5. This meant that instead of being able to build one home on each five acre parcel, I could build one home on each ten acre parcel. This cut the number of homes that could be built on my land to half. I also discovered that million dollar homes had been built in the valley just below my mountain. I had not seen this before because for the past five years I had been working from dawn to midnight, teaching full time, then attending law classes until ten at night. I had been getting up at 5 in the morning and coming home at 11 at night. So I did not see what was going on around my own home area. After Pete died, I had a few days to be there in the daytime, saw and drove through the streets of the upscale development of homes beneath my mountain. It was astonishing. How had this happened? I asked myself, and saying outloud, "God, Pete would be amazed to see this. It is as he predicted; that this area would become developed into real value." Jesus ! I kept saying. Jesus Christ !! Poor Pete, is not here to see this.
I was living in an area surrounded by horse ranches and landscaped estates of five to ten acres size. Everyone had money, expensive vehicles, horses and some swimming pools.
I wrote the county planning supervisors, and politicians as well, about the rezoning of my land with no notice. The county supervisor for my area was Bob Buster. I asked him why no notice of the zone change had been sent to me. He said that the city had passed a law just before that, to the effect that they were not required to send notice if more than 1000 landowners were affected. He said that since that time, they had repealed the law. It was a scam, a device by which they could get away with taking an action without notice to the affected property owners. And the damage was done. Then I wrote to the governor and to Mary Bono Mack, Diane Feinstein, and any others I could about the trick that undermined my property's use. I attended a public hearing regarding the Gavilan development plans. I took my three minutes to stand and offer to give my land to the county for use as a college, on the condition that they allow me to live there in my house the remainder of my life and that they provide me with free utilities, particularly electricity. Everyone in the audience gasped at such an offer. It made no difference to the board; in fact it probably gave them ideas on how they could use my property once they took it from me. Greedy bastards.
The water company, EMWD (Eastern Metropolitan Water District) supplied my water, which I had delivered via water truck drivers I hired. Over the years, Pete had hired water truck drivers to bring water to fill our water tanks. Now I went to the water company and gave them a check for $600 as security on the account and then hired water deliverers who I paid for their service as well as for the amount of water taken from EMWD water lines. It cost me about $200 each time the tanks were filled. I made an offer to the EMWD to put a large reservoir feeder water tank on the highest point of my mountain, to supply the area of the valley below. They did not accept my offer, and later notified me that the water pressure potentially obtainable to my land in the future was reduced to a low pressure line. I was incensed. Once again, value was being sucked away from me. I did not know what to do. I began to have nightmares of crowds of people sitting on the dirt road all the way up the mountain to where it curved around to my home. In the dream, it was if the population had swarmed to my land and taken it.
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