Dick Pouria didn’t mean to torment me. He only looked out his window, that’s all.
“It’s clear blue sky,” Pouria said Friday morning. “It’s supposed to be 76 degrees today.”
Perfect. Perfect for him, I mean.
Life was not so perfect Friday for tens of thousands of people in Snohomish County and all over the region. After weathering wicked winds Thursday night, many faced the likelihood of days without electricity.
While those folks stocked up for or grumbled about cold, dark December days and nights, Pouria chatted by phone from Mesa, Ariz.
His home away from home looks out on the golf course in Sunland Spring Village, a Mesa retirement community. Pouria, who turns 71 today, has been a Hat Island snowbird for 10 years.
While talking with him Friday, I could look out The Herald’s windows and see Gedney Island, the site of Pouria’s other house.
Better known by the nickname Hat Island, it’s west of Everett between Whidbey and Camano islands. Less than two miles long and a half-mile wide, the private island has a marina and a yacht club, a nine-hole golf course, and its own roads and passenger ferry.
A beautiful place to spend summers, Hat Island sees its population shrink in late fall and winter as its mostly retired homeowners flee their Possession Sound paradise for warmer climes. Most of them winter in Arizona, many in Pouria’s Mesa neighborhood.
Sunland Spring Village becomes a sort of Hat Island of the Southwest.
Twelve to 16 Hat Island couples, those who don’t return to the Northwest for the holidays, gather for a Christmas dinner, a New Year’s Eve party, and a New Year’s golf tournament in Mesa, Pouria said.
On Hat Island, which was without power Friday afternoon, Ron Near said “there are only about 34 of us here right now.” In all, the island has more than 200 homes. “It’s quite busy in the summertime, but it really empties out,” said Near, 67, whose house is near Hat Island’s marina.
Geri and Chuck Motson stay all winter on Hat Island. Chuck Motson is manager of the Hat Island Community association.
“There are probably 1,000 people here on big weekends in the summer,” said Geri Motson, 53. “It’s a pretty close-knit community, the ones left behind. You know everybody.”
Unless they use their own boats, islanders’ trips to the mainland are governed by the ferry Holiday, which runs Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays. After the high winds, island roads were covered with downed branches. “All the men are cleaning off the golf course,” Motson said Friday.
Near and his wife, Betty, will spend Christmas on Hat before leaving for the balmy islands of Hawaii. Most years, they stay on Maui until April or May. He plays golf year-round. In shirtsleeves? “Pretty much,” Near said.
Ah, retirement. For me, it’s a pipe dream. I do save for retirement, but I’ve also faced reality. My golden years, which ought to start about a decade from now, will coincide with my youngest child’s college years. Barring academic troubles, he’ll graduate from high school in … gulp … 2017.
My power stayed on through Thursday night’s windstorm, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing. Hat Island summers and Arizona winters sound great. But in my flights of fancy, the geography is a bit different.
When lights flicker and winds howl, I imagine winters at Laguna Beach, Calif., and summers at Priest Lake, Idaho. This snowbird would need little more than a beach and a book – and a few million bucks.
It’s all a wild fantasy. Actually, sticking out Northwest winters is in my genes. My parents, born and raised in Spokane, are in their 80s. My dad is as handy with a snowblower as he is with a lawn mower.
In 1996, during Spokane’s infamous ice storm, they pretty much camped in their house while about 100,000 people went two weeks without power. Their Spokane friends go to Hawaii, California and Arizona. They stay put, winter after rugged winter.
From Arizona, Pouria laughed and asked if he could read about our recent storms on The Herald’s Web site. Sure, be our guest.
I asked about his two-home lifestyle.
“I’m coming up on 10 years. I normally come back around the first of May,” Pouria said. “When they talk about monsoons in Arizona, rain and thunder and lightning, that’s in the summertime. I’m on Hat Island.
“I highly recommend it,” he said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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