Jack, how did you get to your V6 ranch?
I think that I'm able to remember some of the events in my life from about age five on. Looking back now, over 87 years of living has turned out to be a very eventful, scary, sad, satisfying, glorious, loving, joyful, and giving life. My path to our family’s V6 Ranch with my first memory found me riding on a transcontinental passenger train going from Palo Alto California to Garden City, Long Island New York. It was the summer of 1940 and my dad and his brother Russel in 1937 had successfully made their invention called the Klystron, a vacuum tube that produced high frequency radio waves which would become the power source that made RADAR a reality. The air war over England in 1940 was raging as Germany’s plan was to bomb England into a weakened state then invade it from its now conquered country of France. The British Spitfire Fighter Airplane was a very effective fighter plane against the German bombers but they could only stay in the air for about one to two hours because they burned gasoline at such a prodigious rate. They needed more lead time as to when the Germans were coming and RADAR was the answer. When British were given this new early warning system that the German Lufwaf was coming, the loss of German bombers became so great that the idea of invading England was put on hold and ended up never happening. But the reverse did happen as England became the staging ground for the allied forces to invade Europe on June 6, 1944. My dad Sigurd Varian had left for New York several months before me, my sister, and mother. When my dad said his goodbyes he said, “When this war is over we’re going back to California.”
With the war over in 1945, it took until 1947 to do all the initial planning for my father and my uncle Russel to put into motion a new company called Varian Associates. We were on the move again with my father leaving several months earlier before we three. This time there would be no train ride back to California but there would be a 1941 Plymouth sedan that had the backseat full to the brim with stuff and for me a fond farewell to a girl in my seventh grade class that made my heart race when I gave her my first kiss.
The drive across the U.S.A. in July of 1947 took us about a week (no air conditioning) as our cross country main road back then was mostly two lanes so the driving was difficult for my mother who wasn’t the best driver in the world. Upon reaching Salt Lake City Utah my mother stated that she wasn’t crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains at the wheel. Mom called my dad and said you have to come and drive us on to Palo Alto. The next day my dad arrived by Airline and we we’re off again. Be patient, those of you that are asking “are we there yet?”
Housing was very scarce in the Bay Area in 1947 so my folks sent me to spend the rest of the summer with my cousin Sheila Varian in the little town of Halcyon, 15 miles south of San Luis Obispo, CA. This is where my cousin Sheila would introduce me to real horseback riding. Sheila had two horses, her pride and joy “Judy” and mine. I can't remember the horse's name but I do remember Sheila, her next door neighbor Mike, and I. We would ride bareback about a mile to the Oceano Dunes to ride and race on the then vacant Pacific coast beach. One of the objects of all this
riding and racing was to see how many times my cousin could get me to fall off my horse while I had to listen to them laugh as I gathered myself up off the ground. But I fooled them as each day in the saddle and each fall and the laughter I grew to love being a horseback even more.
Sheila went on to become the leading breeder and producer of Arabian Horses for many decades as for me, I went back to Palo Alto to spend my eighth grade year living in a house on the Stanford University campus. My parents rented it while the owner a, Stanford professor, was on a year long sabbatical leave and was out of the country. Toward the end of my eighth grade year a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to travel by Greyhound bus to spend the summer at his grandfather’s farm near Kansas City, Missouri helping with chores, hay baling, cleaning out a barn with lots of manure in it after some of the younger cattle spent time in this barn when the winter snow was was on the ground. I loved all that we did that summer but my friend Bill Kimpton would tell me at the end of our summer stay that this farming life was not for him. Bill would go on to live his life in San Francisco restoring old hotels badly in need of “do overs” and became a hotel mogul in the process.
I went to work for my father, for the summer, at the newly opened business Varian Associates. It was one of the first startups in the now called Silicon Valley. This startup had four employees and my dad and uncle Russel. It was the start of my ninth grade summer and my dad asked me to help out. I said okay and waited for Monday to arrive. Monday was a how to do it day. Tuesday was making cages over and over out of expanded metal using a Spot Welder. It took all of an hour to master this job as my dad said, “You have a very important job in front of you. Building these cages well will protect a very valuable Klystron.” Wednesday, I asked myself, “is that all there is?” Thursday left me totally bored and asking the question again, “is that all there is? Dad we have to talk.” My dad replied “I don’t think you like your job very well but things will get better and there will be different kinds of work to do and the company is doing very well and I know you could move up quickly, you can have a great future here.”
I told my dad, “The first problem is, I don’t want to work my life away indoors.” So my dad said, “what do you want to do?” I wanted to be a Cowboy. I knew I wouldn't be paid to start because I don’t know anything but I wanted to learn. “Okay son I guess if this line of work doesn’t fit go be a Cowboy, I think you’ll be a good one.” “This means you won’t see me tomorrow I hope that doesn’t put you in a bind?” He says, “We’re okay, enjoy your summer and if the work doesn’t seem like work you’ve picked the right occupation.”
I first met Link Hawley at Jordan Junior High School in the ninth grade and we became friends right off. And as the year wore on and summer vacation seemed like it would never start. That's the day Link asked if I had any plans for the summer I said no, but I’m looking for some outdoor work. Link said, “My mother has a 3,000 acre ranch east of Milpitas about 15 miles. It’s in the Diablo mountain range. But first you have to know that the ranch house has no electricity, no telephone, no television, or washing machine but we do have a wood stove to cook on, a Propane refrigerator, running water, and 65 year old Louie Lugo the best Cowboy in the whole world. What do you think?” I said, “You're on.” Thus it became my summer job that I looked forward to each year for the next nine summers of pure joy with Louie, now my boss and mentor, that somewhere along the way we became real good friends.
I was like a Chameleon. Come the day after school was out I would park my very shiny black 1947 Ford convertible that had a way of attracting girls and leave for the ranch with no girls. My Palo Alto clothes were also parked for the summer and replaced with Levi pants, work shirt, Cowboy boots, hat, and each year a little more Cowboy Logic. Then shortly after Labor Day high school would start and the process would reverse itself. I would take a shower, comb my hair then slide back into my white Corduroy pants, Pendleton wool shirt, shine my 47 Ford Convertible and then morph into this guy that had Palo Alto written all over him.
For a guy that was planning on being a bachelor with Ranching as my occupation I could see that marriage might require accommodation to my plans of owning a ranch just like the one I have been working on all these summers go up in smoke. But I was safe as Cal Poly University was for boys only. With start of the fall semester in 1956 Cal Poly was all abuzz about our college President Julian McPhee, how he had sold all of the 3,500 men who had a chance at bachelorhood as a way of life all went down the drain when he admitted 100 freshman girls into this all boys school. Wouldn’t you know it these new ladies weren’t enrolled to just sit in the back of the class. It was the winter quarter of school in 1957 and there was a Rodeo Club meeting one evening and I noticed that there were several “Poly Dolly’s” in attendance. She wanted to have girls Barrel Racing in the Rodeo during our very famous Poly Royal weekend where each department welcomed all, to see the accomplishments of the students in that major. The idea that a girls event belonged in a man’s Rodeo was heresy. I believe a motion was made to have Barrel Racing during the Rodeo and with more than enough other no votes, defeat was assured “motion denied.” But these ladies didn’t quit so easily and after their visit to the dean of students. The Rodeo Club was told that these new students had rights also and in fact there would be Barrel Racing during the biggest college Rodeo in the state. Well, that was 66 years ago and I’m told that girls now outnumber boys at Cal Poly.
I didn’t have a chance. She was standing looking at some horse in the Rodeo arena that had caught her eye and as she turned I caught her eye. A little over a year later on June 21,1958 I found myself saying “I do” to the love of my life for 64 years. In the intervening years my wife Zera (Zee) brought me Kathryn, Lillian, John, and Gregory that gave us 9 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren and a beautiful cattle ranch. So here’s to coeducation. I couldn't have done it without you sweetheart.
Jack, you still haven’t told me how you got to Parkfield and the V6. Well after I said “I do” I wanted to start out on my own and to do that I needed $70,000 that my dad and mom loaned me. That reminds me, I’ve got to remember to pay them back. With my now $70,000 I purchased 2,800 acre ranch of mostly brush and poor soil but it had 2 houses. One was about ready to collapse and the other the people we bought the ranch from needed to stay in the reasonably good house until spring of 1959. So we kicked all the rats and raccoons out of the one ready to collapse, put on a coat of paint inside and moved in. It’s wonderful what two newlyweds can do when you're both pulling in the same direction.
About a year later when I was building a Redwood board spring box to collect a very meager amount of water into the box then to a water trough when a very scary thought entered my conscious mind. Jack you have bought a very very meager ranch and I wanted to cry.
Katy was born in 1959 and it wouldn’t be that many years before three more would follow. I had to pasture more cattle so it meant leasing another ranch one that would carry enough cattle that with the two ranches I would be able to feed my growing family. But it was two hours driving time and the leased Huasna ranch needed a set of corrals that I could work a steer that might be sick. With that chore done I had a pretty good ranch but I didn’t own it. My mind took me to why don’t you sell your starve to death Cantinas Ranch? That’s a good idea Jack but who would by a place as sorry as Pinch Gut Canyon (that’s what the neighbors called my ranch). They said “it would starve a good man to death.”
It was now the spring of 1961 it had rained and Pinch Gut looked pretty good. That’s when I heard a knock on my front door and a man gave his name and said I represent a gentleman from the Los Angelus area who is looking for a deer hunting ranch and I hear that your ranch has a reputation for having lots of deer. Would you be interested in selling it? I was totally blown away but I had to remain calm. So with a slight quiver in my voice I said yes but I needed to talk to my wife first, could you come back tomorrow? We parted company and agreed to meet again the next day in the early afternoon.
Zee said “we certainly have made lots of new friends so it would be sad to leave but if you think you can sell the ranch it’s okay with me.” I hear a knock on our front door but this time when I open the door there are two gentlemen the realtor and the prospective buyer. After talking the day before I called a friend who kept tabs on the reality market and I asked what he thought the value of my ranch that we had now owned for three years was worth? He thought for a moment then said, “$150,000” as I said to myself who would pay that much for such a sorry piece of dirt. With that figure in my mind I told my hoped for new owner $150,000 and he said, “Well we have a deal.” It was going to be a thirty day escrow of all cash. Now the excitement level of being able to move on made 30 days seem like 30 years. With the arrival of the last 30 days escrow closed and there was $150,000 in my checking account. WOW that’s better than the cattle business.
I’m getting close as to how my family and I got to own the V6 keep your trousers on. First Zee and I had to agree that the next ranch we owned we both would like and planned on being there for a lifetime.
It was time to head out to the high desert country of Nevada, Utah, and eastern Oregon. It was August and Zee eight months pregnant with our next child. We had a Chevy Station Wagon that had a mattress in the back where Katy could sleep and play, there were no seat belts back in those days. We had been driving and looking for a couple of days but hadn’t seen anyplace yet that got us excited. On the fourth day we pulled into the town of New Meadows, Idaho and there was this meadow that seemed to go forever with knee high grass and it was gorgeous. It was now lunchtime and there was an inviting little cafe. I pulled into the parking lot got out and took in a deep breath and said to Zee, “This must be the Promised Land it’s so beautiful.'' We sat at a booth were almost everybody could hear the excitement in my voice as I demolished a hamburger so I could talk clearly about how we might find a realtor that could show us around. About the time we were getting ready to leave a Cowboy came over and introduced himself and told us he has been living on his family ranch on a part of New Meadows most of his life. He said let me tell you a little bit about New Meadows. “I’ll start by asking if you're from California?” and I said, “Yes we’re looking for a ranch that would get us started in the cattle business.” He said, “Let me tell you first about the winter weather here: you will have to feed your cows for six cold winter months, now for the summer you're going to spend your time irrigating and putting up hay for the winter and because you're from California we may like you and we may not.” I thanked him for his forthright information then I looked at Zee and she said we’re both born and raised in California we hardly know what snow looks like.
I was watching New Meadows Idaho disappear in my rear view as we retreated to California to take another look at our home state with its mountain of laws, regulations, its politics, and traffic. It was still home. I don’t think we had been home a week when I ran into a friend of mine in Paso Robles and he asked if I was still looking for a ranch because if you are my brother sells real estate and I think he has a ranch listed that you should go look at. Two days later a very pregnant Zee and I were in the owner's Jeep, instead of the realtor’s pickup, as he of course knew the ranch boundaries and how he had been managing the ranch for most of his life. I could tell that Clyde was nervous about Zee, I’m sure that he felt she might have her baby on the back seat while I was awestruck by the beauty of the mountains, the grass, the trees, and the wildlife. After two hours of bouncing, looking, and figuring how I could pay for 8’000 acres at fifty dollars per acre or $400,000. Here’s how, you take my $150,000 and borrow $250,000 from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. for 30 years at 5%. Were back at Mr. Taylor’s house now and Mr. Taylor says “what do you think?” I glanced over at Zee who had a big smile on her face and I said to Mr. Taylor “will take it.” We closed escrow in November of 1961. I was 26 years old and Zee was 23. Lillian arrived at the War Memorial hospital in Paso Robles on September 18, 1961. Our new neighbors told us that we paid way too much and the rumor was that we would probably go broke, that was 61 years ago. In my mind as I gaze at the mountain view from our bedroom window, the V6 just keeps getting prettier each year.
See Ya,
Jack
Whale Rock: located in the “Mustang” at the V6.