fromtop:^christopherchung/thepress^ democrat.^ap/shutterstock.mikemcgregor6 april 2019
DEAR READER
O
n our 20th anni-
versary, Susan and
I headed off for a
few days to a lovely valley
about an hour away. We
didn’t know much about
the town, but that was
fine. Our goal was really
just to renew our faith in
each other.
We began by stocking up at the
quirky Village Market in Glen Ellen,
California. Within minutes, friendly
locals spotted us and started chatting
in the aisles with charming tips. You
gotta hike to Jack London’s house.
Oh, dinner at the Fig Café.
Hours later, having followed
their yellow brick road all day,
we walked, delirious, back from
dinner to our creekside inn.
“I think I could live here,”
Susan said.
It turns out that Glen
Ellen’s contagious spirit
was not our passing
illusion. In October
2017, the Nuns FireA Nice Place
Survives
bore down on this town
near Santa Rosa. An as-
tounding 183 of Glen Ellen’s 750 or so
homes burned down. Among them
was Jill Dawson’s place, just across
the creek from the inn to which we
had returned the next anniversary,
and four more in turn. I called Jill
after reading her family’s story.
She sounded just like the spirited,
generous type Susan and I have
loved meeting in Glen Ellen.
After the fire, she told me, her
family’s prospects for stay-
ing in the town looked
bleak. But residents
mobilized on Facebook
and in the Village Mar-
ket to brainstorm how
to house one another.Art and Jill Dawson,
in front of the trailer a
neighbor set them up in
after the Nuns Fire