How Verl’s World came to be
I was living in Wadsworth Nevada living with Shirley Burns who we had meet online in love at AOL. We got together and if we married she would have had to give up an income from her late husband so that created our living together and not married.
I had sold a construction company and had cash, so we used that cash to buy a fifth wheel trailer and travel and not to be tied to any particular place. We meet my brother just outside of Flagstaff Arizona and he showed me things necessary to live and be comfortable in a travel trailer.
We agreed after traveling for several years together that we should find one spot and she wanted to own a house. I had spent a lot of money up till now and she agreed to be fair she should put part of what I had already spent toward the house. She borrowed against her home in the Bay Area to use in return for my investments, so we were both even.
With cash in hand from that loan, we bought property on the Truckey River after much searching for what I required to fit my idea of staying in one place. Since both had put money toward this property we signed a document giving the other ownership (right of serval) in this so that when one died the other owned it outright.
I had experience in developing this property sense I had been a contractor doing the same thing for years. Together we put in power pole and got electricity. Up until then we were living on the property and using a drop cord two hundred feet long which only gave enough power to charge the batteries in the fifth wheel. Lloyd and Sue Byrd allowed us this for free and it got us by until the power was installed.
I rented a backhoe and had the chance to buy one for twelve thousand dollars, but she refused to go along with that, so we paid more than that renting by then she saw the mistake, but it was too late then. With the machine I dug across the property and installed and second power panel, so we had power on both sides of the property.
The property ran from the road to the Truckee River our back property corners were in the water of this river. The front on the road, but the problem was the well for water was just off the river and requirements for the septic system / sewer system had to be over a certain distance from the well so the holding tanks and drain field had to be at the front of the property. It was an engineered system, and it was the most expensive complicated thing I had ever saw. Unlike most where the drain field allowed the water to flow out this had to be pumped into the drain field which was flat and all the water in each line would drain together because it was under pressure.
I told the inspector I did not see how that would be possible to do, if one line was a half inch to high it would not work. He said I would do it or it would not pass inspection. If any of the necessary pumps quit there was an alarm to be very loud and a blinking light also. I had bought the property for twenty-five thousand dollars and five years before it sold for eighty-five thousand dollars, and they had gave up after putting in two storage tanks, trying to finish this sewer system.
After spending over thirty thousand dollars and two months’ time I put the system into operation having passed all inspections.
With power and sewer, we had to install a pump for a well that was already drilled. I hired a man to come and install that sense I had no knowledge on this and did not want to do it again. With water, sewer, and electric we purchased a manufactured home and hired a man who turned out to be a great friend and together we had a twenty-four by forty-eight-foot home. We agreed the home was to be colored and anything inside was for her choosing. I built a patio on the back ten foot by fifty which was longer than the house, but I had windows from one end to the other and the view was fantastic. Thirty-five feet from the water and twenty-five foot above the river.
When the power was off any power shortage we had no water so with no power and no water I was not satisfied with that even though he power was not normally down. I installed a solar system that would feed batteries and the water pump was capable of operating without city power. I had dug the pump house the last day of rental of the backhoe and put railroad ties on each side of the hole with steps down into the well house. I did not want a well-being house above ground that I had to look at and destroy the view of the river, and the winters froze the pipes, so it was a now briner for me it had to be below ground.
Having built a tool shed I installed the batteries in that, and it allowed the freezing winters from the solar system and the batteries. I put solar panels on the wooden fence that I had put up to give us an area to build outdoor recreation privately. I installed the solar panels on this fence and on top of the tool shed. The hardest mind problem was the well was two hundred and fifty volts and the startup currant for the pump was mathematically different what was capable of starting the pump.
I bought several inverters before I finally found what was necessary to run the pump, two inverters tied together. Education costs rather in a school on in the field. By the time I was finished I could throw a two switches, and be on solar, or I had a generator that could supply the house and the well.
At nights I had been telling friends what I was doing and sent out emails to those that was reading and asking questions of all of this. I made many friends in Wadsworth, and they helped and those that were out of state also came by on occasion to visit with us. By then I had about fifteen or twenty who I was sending these emails to. Lloyd Byrd one day while visiting said Verl why don’t you call this Verl’s World that you are sending out to others? I laughed and joked with him about this but I started to send these to people on the list and Terry Bush a neighbor and friend (I wrote a book called “The love Triangle” after asking Debby and Terry if could use their names) came by and showed me that I could make a list of Verl world and just hit one button and have all those I was mailing to easy and not have to list each one every time I mailed out this article.
Many times, while writing this article I would say this is my last one and I fully intended to quit bothering people with this. Then something would happen and I could not help it I would go to the computer and complain or tell my thoughts on something that would get under my skin.
Debby Bush, Terrys wife would make me pies and drop by to visit and she encourage me several times to write what I wanted and stop worrying about what she or anyone else thought. Just say it Verl and if we don’t want to read don’t have to. What I wouldn’t give for one of her Lemon pies today.
Scott Harrington another neighbor who was a physiatrist and two doors away would give me very good conversations on God and a different view. Scott’s name was used and part of his personality came in my first book published “The Ghost in the Coffin”. I did not use his last name because I wrote to him asking permission and he didn’t write back. He got married while I was in Costa Rica and I told him I would fly home and add to the wedding by marring them, if he wanted but not wishing that I had no response. No humor there but would have been fun had he desired a little extra at the wedding.
I can honestly say I loved every one of my neighbors, and Billy and Lessley Powell were next door, and he got into drones and was also in a book last name only “the Love Triangle”. Bill was an engineer and very intelligent and we visited over the fence and on the patio many times. Lessley and Shirley were very good friends.
Andrea (spelled wrong but memory short) and Tim, become very good friends, and she encourage me to write, and when I was about to leave Nevada, I said I was not going to continue writing Verl’s World I was going to Cosa Rica and find a wife and just loaf. She said, “Verl don’t you dare go and leave us wondering what that women will look like and what you are doing. She said make me a promise you will keep it up and let us know.”
While this was going on I wrote a book called Great Eagle, then I added to that with book number two of Great Eagle, then book three was written. I worked on “Checkmate” which was the near-death experiences I had gone through. But what I knew about writing was nothing compared to what I was reading. I have read about five books a week and did for over twenty-five years. Lately it has dropped to two or three because of the time writing cuts out and I will not give up a nap to write. Some things in life are necessary and that is one I cherish dearly. I have completed book four of Great Eagle also at this point.
In February I had trouble walking so I had another knee replacement. Shirley helped me to get up from chair and get onto walker in March. In April I had to help her get up into walker. She had hand shoveled the gravel out of the back of the truck allowing us to build this private area beside our house. I was digging trenches by hand at 78 years old and they were thirty-four inches deep Frank Headmen from Springville Utah said, “Hell Verl I could not even get out of that trench if I fell in, let alone dig it with a pick and shovel.” So, we were in pretty good shape until 2025.
They told Shirley that she had terminal cancer and it was beyond help two weeks later she died. I begged God to save her don’t take her away from me. I pleaded and begged him to save her. But it was not to be. If any of my writings were to be known or something I was to do later, came about, he knew about then, and you would not be reading this are anything else I have ever written.
She died and I was left setting in a chair in my front room after having a daughter come and try to help me but that was not possible either. She left and I sat there and looked at a television which was not worth my time, and I hated wasting it in front of that one-eyed monster. I decided I wanted another woman and I was not going to set in that chair and wait for death.
Making up my mind I started to think what can I do? I was living in a house paid for but was making payments on the loan that was in my name. I had been paying taxes and insurance on Shirleys house in the Bay Area where her son had lived there for over twenty years off of me. He had paid nothing except keep it up, and even then when the furnace went out he would not even fix that. So, I decided house paid for, income from social security, and no bills. I could set there forever until I died, or I could get up and live.
Deciding on Costa Rica then knowing the country was narrow and I could be on the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean. Then being a morning person, I decided I wanted to see the sun come up more than watch it go down. Now I have cut the country in half I decided the Caribbean would fit me better. I put the house up for sale and all my friends said, “Verl you are 83 years old, and you want to go somewhere where you know nobody, you don’t speak Spanish and what about hospital? Don’t go at this age, that would be crazy.”
Because of the length of this, and the rest as Paul Havey said, is history. I will send this to the clouds and watch the storm grow, or die, but thanks to Debby and Andrea it is now part one, of how Verl’s World came to be. The travels to come, will show how the web page, and more of God works, will be if,,, he is willing and the creek don’t rise, as history says.
A Messenger,
Verl K.
