Why Leave Austin?

I was born in Austin, Texas, in 1947 and lived there all of my adult life -- until this year.

What happened?

I loved Austin, but the city's size and traffic were becoming more and more irksome. And the heat! I don't think I was made for months and months of near-100-degree days. And besides, I'd always wanted to find out what it was like to live somewhere else. I wanted some perspective on my hometown. I wanted a change.

In 2007 I retired from my long-time state job. My wife Leela and I sold our home for a good price just before the real-estate market went into a nosedive. Meanwhile we'd had our eye on Corvallis, Oregon, a university town of about 55,000 in the Willamette Valley. Concurrently we had also become interested in the cohousing concept and were delighted to find a new cohousing community getting started in Corvallis. At first we didn't think we could get in, even if we wanted to, which we weren't sure of. There weren't any units we liked available. But during a reconnoitering trip to Corvallis last year, we found that a CoHo unit just right for us had opened up (someone had dropped out). At that point the buildings weren't quite finished, and we got on the waiting list. After that everything just fell into place -- or snowballed -- or avalanched -- or pick your own cataclysmic, earth-shifting image. We rushed to sell our house, we ridded ourselves of mountains of stuff, and we made it out here to Corvallis in mid February 2008, somewhat befuddled and surprised at what we'd done.

Sometimes I don't think there is a why. Maybe we just landed here after a storm. But that's not true -- we really did make this happen. And if we can pull off this amazing transformation, we can accomplish a lot of other incredible things too.