The year 2021 was a bitter sweet year for us. We lost two people we love (our moms), gained a new home in Prosser, brought to that home the jeeps, yet to make everything work, I’ve had to let eWillys go, or at least leave it on life support. In fact, over the last six months I’ve used my computer less than I have since sometime in the late 1990s when I was using an iMac, one of those Bondi Blue iMacs; that was 2 x-wives ago! Wow, time flies.

Instead of working on the computer improving eWillys, I’m outside removing stumps, inside remodeling another of our interior spaces, or pondering where we are going to put a new barn. Instead of doing updates in the early AM, I am walking the dogs down the driveway to open the gate, eating breakfast, and doing some puzzles on my phone. Instead of pondering the narrative structure of my next book–October Gold, a book that intertwines Japanese Gold, American POWs used as Slave Labor, and the State Department’s denial of their reparations from their use as slave labor–I am wondering if I should just get an old jeep with a snow plow or get a snow plow for my tractor.

In other words, my mind is simply not focused on ewillys or jeeps. This isn’t just an isolated moment; It isn’t the result of contemplation following our mother’s deaths. It also isn’t the result of the fact that at age 56 I am now fully retired, meaning I don’t have to work (but being a work-a-holic, I have to be doing something). Instead, it’s been true since we bought this place.

This doesn’t mean eWillys will come to a dead stop. But, updates will continue to be infrequent and I don’t expect them ever to return to their full glory (Unless someone else wants to step in and do it). I guess the question is, what do I do with all the bits and bytes that constitute eWillys?

That is the big question, a question for which the answer has been elusive. Perhaps I can answer that question in 2022?

In the meantime, we’ll continue to remodel. This summer I hope to do more about redoing the shop area; My hope is to set this place up so we we can entertain folks, so we can hold some kind of annual vintage jeep event, something a little different and unique, hopefully in 2023. But, we’ll see how 2022 progresses.

I hope everyone’s 2022 is fantastic!