Not Happy News

Really?

The summer could not have been going better.  The house did not get blown away in the "almost" tornado on the 4th of July, there were lots of fun afternoons at the local pool with all the neighbors and trips to the zoo and other kid activities.  I was managing to do some small decorating jobs and check out some larger ones for fall.  Wally was really looking forward to going to Wes's school, for kindergarten in the fall. 

I managed to have a reasonably good time on the annual trek - called vacation - to Oklahoma for two weeks the first part of August.  The two year anniversary of the move to Kansas City was very much celebrated by the boys and I, not so much by Dennis.  It seemed like when things were not going so well with Dennis it was easy for me to sort of take a deep breath and think about all the good things I had going for me. After all I had two happy boys, a nice home, the start of a very good and fun business, great friends and the possibility of getting into medical school. Life was good.

Life was suddenly not so good when we came back from vacation. It seemed like a brief recession began in 1980 that affected housing, steel manufacturing and automobiles. There was high unemployment and rising interest rates all of which I had paid no attention to.  Those were not things on my list of what to worry about but when automobiles were involved I started to learn to pay attention.  Ford Motor Company figured out some cost savings methods one of which was to close the District Office in Kansas City. The District Office where Dennis worked.

In the world of large corporations you have two options when something like this happens. Number one is to keep your job and go where ever they decide to send you or hit the road and look for a new job. As much as Dennis complained about his job, only wanted to go back to Dallas, I don't think he ever contemplated on anything but going where Ford sent him.  We had to admit that the amenities with Ford were nice in that we had new cars to drive, health insurance, a nice retirement plan plus a decent salary for the Midwest.  A lateral move with no salary increase was not the best thing that could happen when the new job is in New Jersey.

Never having been any further east than St. Louis I had to look at a map to know exactly where New Jersey was.  Actually it could have been one state away and I would not have wanted to go there.  I had the silly thought that Kansas City would be my forever home as I loved the weather with snow in the winter, the people and the architecture with all the old houses.  My Dad and Uncle Tom had lived and worked there, my grandparents were buried there and I knew all about the history of the town listening to Uncle Tom talk about the speakeasies and the corruption of Pendergrast in the 1920's.  I loved driving down State Line Road in the middle of the city and realizing one side of the street was Kansas and the other side Missouri and the fact that the Royal's baseball and the Chief's football stadiums sat in the same parking lot together. I loved that hot air balloons floated by our back deck so close you could talk to the people in them. Kansas City actually has more fountains than Rome so what is not to love.

I was so upset with the news I couldn't talk about it.  Wes and Wally were not at all happy with the thought of moving.  Wally just wanted to go to the same school Wes did and there were tears from both of them.  I had to put on a happy face everyday for them but found it very hard to talk to friends about it once the boys went and told the whole neighborhood that we were moving.  There was no sympathy from the New Neighbors group as they had all moved there from some place else and thought it was fine. Not fine, more like the end of my world.

Dennis had to report to work in New Jersey the second week of September.  He could fly home every other weekend, he could meet some of the other people who worked there and start looking for a house.  It was actually the Philadelphia District Office but was located across the Delaware River in Pennsauken, New Jersey.  Most of the Ford people lived in New Jersey so they were showing him around and telling which were the best places to live.  Do I need to mention that I heard nothing positive from him about the area?  Phone calls and weekends home were constant complaining about the job, the people and the cost of housing. 

I have always been a "tomorrow" person in that somehow no matter how bad a day was, tomorrow would always be better.  It was hard to keep that thought going especially when Mother showed up.  She had been in Germany with her sister-in-law for most of the summer and stopped by on her way home from Wisconsin.  I sort of brought up the idea that maybe the boys and I would not follow Dennis to New Jersey but stay in Kansas City.  As much as she had always disliked Dennis she gave me no encouragement what so ever. The conversation went much like how did I expect to support myself and the boys, it was my duty to stay until they graduated from high school and were on their own and I was certainly not going to get any support of any kind from her.  Guess in her world that is what she did as far as leaving Dad was concerned and thought I should do the same.  It was nice when she left.


It was a stroke of luck for me that Barney was out of town when the news of the move came up.  Somehow I managed to act like my normal self during our phone calls and it gave me some time to try to sort things out.  Wanting to stay in Kansas City because of him was only a small part of my agony but telling him was going to be difficult. We had managed over the course of the last two years to maintain the relationship on a friendship basis and not ever discussing any problems in our respective marriages.  Do I just say so long it's been nice to know you or totally fall into a pitiful, tearful mess and tell him how much I don't want to go?

Wally is happily going to school with Wes, I have started the huge job of redoing a house for a friend of Barney's, the For Sale sign is planted in the front yard and I have to fly to Philadelphia to look for a house.
Looking for a house will be a much bigger deal than telling Barney I am leaving.