Wally and Tug

No one really knew how traumatic the move to New Jersey really was for me. Of course I was very good at putting on the happy face for everyone, especially the boys. Most days I would get up with great plans of redecorating the house or trying to become part of the community but with in a few hours the sadness of leaving Kansas City, a business and friends sank in and it was difficult to get anything done or want to go and do anything.

Barney's visit really changed all that. I knew a lot of the historical facts about Philadelphia but spending time in the city to figure out what to show Barney and then taking him on the tour made me realize that I was pretty lucky.  His excitement over seeing all the historical and neat places gave me, in a way, approval to be there. Actually it wiped out all my fear that with the move I would never see him again and affirmed that this was a wonderful place to live.

My sweet neighbor, Sis, had tried to get me involved in almost everything going on in Riverton.  It may have started with my willingness to go to Grace Episcopal Church with her and Gus each Sunday or my going to the "Friday Potluck Lunch and Craft Afternoon" at Bay's. Or helping with Story Time at the Library or being interested in the Historical Society or finding out just what the Porch Club was about.   In reality I think it was this fascinating lady thirty plus years my senior who had never lived anywhere but on this same street and had this great love for her hometown. 


Truthfully I had not been to church except for weddings and funerals in all the years I had been married to Dennis.  He had been raised a fire and brimstone Baptist and simply did not want anything to do with organized religion.  It had always been easy not to go to a church and save the argument but I had begun to really like going the Episcopal Church and decided that Easter Sunday I would at least try to get the boys interested in going also. So, I made a new dress for me and outfits for Wes and Wally.  The boys would have rather stayed home and eaten Easter candy but I made them get dressed.  Wes was the usual Wes and did not want to get dressed much less put on the shoes I had bought for him.  I guess Wes thought if he didn't put on the shoes he would not have to go to church  so he would curl up his toes so the shoes would not fit.  This went on for quite awhile when I finally just said okay, let's go or we will be late.  Wes said he couldn't go without shoes  and I told him his socks would be fine and that no one would even notice. Walking to church Wes decided a half a block from home shoes might be nice and ran home and put them on.

I was not prepared for New Jersey having so many flowering trees in the spring and I was not used to the hundred year old trees all over town or how much foliage there was. Growing grass was a problem because of all the shade but half of our backyard was covered with English Ivy that surrounded the hundred foot tall trees. Noisy gas powered lawn movers did not seem to be the accepted thing to use.  With only a very small areas of grass to mow we reverted to the very old fashion push mower, the little revolving blade with two wheels and a long handle. The house sat on a lot 50 x 140 foot lot with half of that English Ivy so mowing a lawn mower width path winding through the Ivy and over the rest of the yard took less than an hour. It also made it very easy to send ten year old Wes out to mow the yard.  Well, I say easy but there was usually a few hours of argument before the little rotary blade started turning.

Riverton was only one square mile in area with about 3,000 residents.  One of the great things about our house was that I could stand on the sidewalk in front of the house and see the school yard and the Episcopal Church in one direction and the Delaware River and the Yacht Club in the other direction. The Yacht Club was the oldest existing one on the Delaware.  The river was tide water and one mile wide.  Sis was the first woman, back in her teens, to swim across the river and back. But the best thing about the Yacht Club was that every Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon there were sailboat races. Not ever being much of a "boat" person I caught myself falling in love with the sailboats and the river.

Of course Dennis was very uninterested in anything that took place in our new town.  His brain was still deeply involved in drag racing.  Since we had a dragster chassis and trailer he was most unhappy about the little wood frame single car garage.  That first spring he built an addition onto the back of the garage so he could back the dragster in, raise the front of it up to the rafters and park our 1950 Mercury underneath it. Clever as that was you still had to squeeze into the garage and back the Mercury out to get to the lawn mower or any tools one needed. But Wally did get his first chance at learning to paint after the garage addition was complete.

The Christmas puppy, Tug, was always a source of laughter and fun.  We survived the winter and housebreaking the little clown.  With the advent of spring I was able to just let him out the door to do his jobs and at first he would come right back in.  The nicer the weather got the more he seemed to want to explore his territory.  I became a source of laughter for the neighborhood running down the street after him in my bathrobe or having the local police chief knocking on the door with Tug in his arms. I finally learned that Tug could get home all by himself or someone would bring him home so I stopped running after him.

The boy's bedrooms finally got finished and looked pretty darn good, if I my say so myself.  Wally had his Willy the Whale to protect him from the ghosts in the house and we found a lot of ship artifacts to go in Wes' room.  The only real hard part in the decorating was the fact that every window in the house had the old two inch wide wooden slat binds with the fabric tape.  Naturally they were all painted in Mrs. Adams Blue.  Somehow in the current age of metal mini blinds I managed to find a place that sold the fabric tape to repair the blinds with.  Does it sound like fun to take the blinds completely apart, lay all the slats out in the basement and put two coats of oil paint on each side?  Not fun but they sure looked great when I got them done.

After five months of living some place I certainly did not want to be it was a welcome change to be able to see all the positive aspects of living on the East Coast.  All the days of depression and sense of loss disappeared to be replace with days of laughter, fun and a new adventure every day.  

Hopefully I can maintain my positive outlook as I head out to purchase new running shoes. Mother is coming for a visit and this could be lots of fun or a sheer disaster.