We lived in our small apartment for over a year when something amazing happened. Somehow we got pregnant! With this we were faced with another de-lima. The apartment complex didn’t allow children. We were going to be forced to move. I was still working in the factory and Darlene was still working at the dry cleaners for little money. It was a very joyest time for us. We were under way with starting our family. We started looking for a house to buy. We were very naive to think that we could possibly afford a house. We looked all around in the area close to where we worked. We found a house right across the alley from Darlene’s mother and father’s home. The house was a large home that was owned by the realtor and a church. The home had been boarded up for several years. We were going to rent it for one year with the payments that we could make on paying for the house, then we would be able to buy after the year with no problems.
This house that was to be our first home was going to require a lot of work. We felt that we were up for the challenge. We went to work right away. We acquired used furniture from relatives. A color TV that’s only colors were a shade of blue and red with rolling lines. Darlene made a cover for a couch that we got from a sister of hers. The nicest thing that we owned was a stereo that I bought in Japan when I was in the Marines. We went to a furniture store and bought a bedroom set on a revolving charge account. Our lives were changing from carefree to becoming responsible people. It was obvious that we were going to require more money if we were going to make this work.
Factory life just wasn’t for me. I had it in my mind since I was a young child that I wanted more for myself and my family. I saw my mother and father struggle to make ends meet. Now don’t get me wrong my folks did the best they could. It was the life they knew and they always tried to give to their children what they needed. We were not privileged, we did not have brand name clothes to wear to school but we always had new clothes to wear at the beginning of the school year. When Easter came we always had new go to church clothes.
I remember a lot of Christmas’ that seemed big. Of course we children always wanted a lot and it was as though we received a lot. Always some toys and some clothes. Mom always made plenty of Christmas cookies and other treats. She could stretch a dollar a long ways. It wasn’t until we got older that we realized that my folks went into debt every Christmas and would take almost the whole next year to pay it off. Back in those days most stores offered layaway programs requiring little down and little payments each week. Banks offered savings accounts that were designed just for saving toward the next Christmas.
Back in those days you were the same clothes until they didn’t fit anymore or they wore out. I remember tennis shoes that I would wear until holes would show through. It took me until I was an adult before I got brand name shoes. I just didn’t want that kind of life. I associated that life with factory life. I want more, more like the neighbors and like a lot of other kids at school. I wanted to provide more for my new family.
I decided to look for another job, a job that would pay more. I had a brother-in-law that worked at a major wire company and he helped me get a job there. Yes it was another factory, but I needed more money right now. I was just married and had a baby on the way and had an old house to make into a home. I was still selling Amway however it still was not enough to sustain a living.
