Sometime Down The Road

When I received the letter from Barney I imagined everything possible from surprise to relief to fear.  There was great hesitation in opening it because I had not heard from him in three and a half months. I had actually tried to call him a couple of months ago and his phone was no longer in service.  I had worried that something had happened to him
but then I noticed the postmark was two and a half months old. How does a letter take that long to arrive at it's destination?  I guess that was pretty typical of being, in effect, homeless and using General Delivery as your address.

When I finally got the courage to open the letter the first line said how much he missed me and how much he loved me.  He wrote almost a whole page on how it was hard to not talk to me every Tuesday  as we had done for over six years.  Then there were a lot of memories of all the places we had gone to and had done from meeting at the restaurant that had burned down to our day in Atlantic City.  Then he wrote that he was giving into Lauren and that they were going to move to California to be closer to her family.  With his business they could live anywhere and as much as Kansas City would always be home he was finding it difficult not to make the move. With the move he would be out of touch for awhile as they were going to stay with Lauren's parents until their house was completed. Sounded like he was in the same position I had been.

I read the letter so many times that day that I had it  memorized.  At first I took it as a it's been fun, so long, goodbye but that was only because I expected the letter to say that.  Over the course of the next few weeks I thought about the letter and our very complicated relationship. I had never really thought about how much we were alike before and began to see that we were both very non confrontational and did what we thought was expected of us.  We had talked endlessly about our childhoods, hopes, dreams, victories and failures.  Even though we did not talk about each of our marriages there were little comments dropped by both of us that said neither of us were very happy in them. Most of all I knew that my Dudley-Do-Right-Eagle-Scout would have said so long, kid, it's been nice to know you if that is what he meant.  I would miss him terribly until I would hear from him again but there were things I needed to attend to.

The boys and I skated a lot and they made friends with two brothers about their same ages.  Wes got interested in speed skating and Wally joined the Cub Scouts so they were happy and doing well.  I managed to get all the boxes unpacked and mini blinds on all the windows but not much of anything else as far as decorating the house went.  That fall my wallpaper business really picked up.  The first time I had to wallpaper a two story entryway was more than a little terrifying but I got very used to it since every house they were building had one.

Any football fan knows that the University of Michigan's mascot is the Wolverine.  Dennis came up with tickets for a Michigan/Colorado football game.  I am not much of a football fan but I do like halftime and people watching.  The Michigan Stadium sat 109,000 people and was full that day.  We sat amidst yelling fans with bills on ball caps that looked like the mouth of a Wolverine, teeth and all. I cheered for Michigan not because I was a fan or because I even knew what was going on in the game but just because I was afraid one of those hats might eat me if I did not cheer the team on.  

The two cats were happy to be in a house instead of a motel room.  French Fry, who we had since Kansas City, who loved to hunt managed to present us with a dead chipmunk on the steps outside the sliding glass door almost everyday....nice.  Sylvester, the black and white cat, had somehow learned to play fetch.  He really like to play with rabbits feet and if you threw it across the floor he would go get it and bring it back. For Christmas that year the boys bought him a bright pink new one.  A week or so before Christmas they wrapped it up and put it under the tree.  We came home one day and there were bits of wrapping paper all over the hallway floor.  Sylvester evidently was not a cat who wanted to wait for Christmas and he was proudly taking a nap with his new toy in the den.

Christmas came and went.  After Christmas we went skiing just like everyone else in the state of Michigan.  Mom had been on a purging spree at her house and rather than have a garage sale, which she despised, she sent three huge boxes to me.  Besides tons of clothes, not my style and two sets of china there were ski boots and skis.  We went UP North to Traverse City.  Now you need to understand Michigan terminology.  Anyplace north of the middle of the state is simply known as Up North.  However, if you cross the Mackinac Bridge you will still be in Michigan but it is called the U.P. or Upper Peninsula.  Actually you never tell someone you are going to Traverse City or anyplace north of the middle of the state.  You are merely going Up North.

When the ball dropped in Times Square that New Year's  I could have never fathomed what that year was going to bring.

Storm's A Comin'

Looks Like A Storm Is Coming

It wasn't easy after the disastrous reunion to make life go back to the old normal.  The helpful thing was that there lots of boxes to unpack and the boys did not start school until a few days after Labor Day. 

The subdivision was fairly new so there were not many families and we had empty lots all around us.  There was another Ford family but they were not very friendly so the only other kid Wes and Wally could play with was Bryce who was still living in the Holiday Inn waiting for their house to be done.  They could go back to the motel to swim but Bryce came over a lot as the boys just liked being in a house with all their belongings.

Wes turned fourteen right before school started and it was one of the few years that there was no birthday party.  Those are pretty impossible when you have no friends so I gave him the option of doing whatever he wanted to do.  First he ordered a chocolate cheesecake.  Hmm...I had never made a cheesecake before so I went out and got all the stuff including the special pan it called for and whipped one up.  Must say it was pretty good for my first attempt but the thing must have weighed ten pounds.  I don't think we were ever able to eat the whole cheesecake and I did discover later that it must have been a commercial type recipe as you do not normally make one in a twelve inch pan with three boxes of cream cheese.  He chose the fair that happened to be going on as his place to go and I must say we all had a pretty good time.

School finally started with Wes going into high school in the ninth grade while Wally went into the fourth grade.  Being new at the school from the start of the semester was a good thing since there were a lot of other kids that were new to Farmington and Farmington Hills.  Making friends was pretty easy for both of them, especially Wes.  Lucky for me as there was a school bus that came by to pick them up and bring them home.

The good thing about the bus was that Dennis decided after moving into the garage with the house attached I could get rid of the company lease car I had and drive our 1950 Mercury after the moving company repaired the hood. Now I loved the old Mercury and it was fun to drive but my so called auto expert husband had put a bigger engine in it, all by his little self, and I guess you could say it was not always dependable. One afternoon I left Wally at home and ran Wes to meet the bus for his soccer game.  Funny thing was that we got about halfway there and oil started pouring out of the top of the engine.  I pulled into a service station to survey the damage which did not look good. The mechanic said I could not drive it which was a no brainer as
there was oil all over the engine compartment.

Luckily I called Bryce's Mom, Cindy, she came and got Wes to take him to the bus then went by the house to pick up Wally so he would not be alone.  I had called Dennis and he said he would come by in an hour and a half and fix it when he got off work.  Swell.  Interesting as I looked over the engine mishap I noticed that the copper tubing oil line had broken at the connection point.  Hmm...my pretty sharp memory seemed to recall that we had bought a 1940 Ford Truck once, took it home and looked it over and Dennis took it back because it had copper tubing brake lines.  His point that you never used copper tubing because it doesn't last was suddenly well remembered. I did point that out to him for which I got a huge frown.  About a month later after another 1950 Mercury oops he ordered me a new lease car.

The boys and I started skating every Wednesday evening and then I started going on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  Detroit is actually the city that never sleeps.  With the auto plants working three shifts a day there are always people out and looking for things to do.  That town has a bowling ally, a roller skating rink or in winter an ice rink on every corner. The Tuesday and Thursday morning skaters were retired people who skated for exercise instead of walking in the mall.  A lot of them went to some rink to skate every morning of the week. Along with skating there is also coffee drinking in the snack bar so it was very easy to make skating friends.

Skating friends came in handy for networking.  There was a gentleman who came every once in awhile who did insurance repair.  He went into homes that a minor fire or flood and fixed everything.  Since I was looking for a way to become a little more financially independent I told him I did hang wallpaper.  It did not take long for him to need some help so at least it was a start on getting back into the decorating business.  He was great to work for and there were some really interesting jobs and people.

One day he called and asked if I would be willing to work in a black family's home.  Actually I was really surprised by that but I was also beginning to learn some of Detroit's history.  I met several parents of the boy's friends and when I would talk about going to downtown Detroit to do this or that a lot of them were surprised.  Seems like there was a huge population of the outlying areas that had not been in the city limits of Detroit since race riots of 1964.or  White-flight from the city limits of Detroit began leaving a lot of neighborhoods empty and the beginning of decades of problems in the city itself. The house I ended up going to was in the University Park area and was a lovely two story brick with arches for doorway and cove ceilings.  The couple who lived there could not have been more gracious although they did look a little surprised when a Caucasian woman wallpaper hanger showed up.  

It did not take long before I began getting calls from homeowners themselves wanting me to do work for them. Business started - check.  I had not forgotten about medical school but needed some time to establish residency.  I also needed someone in Michigan in the medical 

field to be a reference so I decided to go to Ann Arbor just thirty five miles down the road and take the Graduate Record Exam.  There was logic in that decision since I did not think anyone from the medical school or a famous doctor would build a house next door I would go take a class or two at the place where the medical school was.  Dennis was furious but the test was really easy.  Step towards future goal - check.

Michigan did have it's positives the best being the weather. Every season was beautiful as the summers were mild, the falls were spectacular and winter was wonderful.  I have never thought there was such a thing as too much snow.  In Michigan it arrived in November and stayed until March or even April.  All the roads were cleared by 7:00 am and there was never any day that school was closed due to the beautiful white stuff. There was something quite exhilarating about going out before dawn to shovel the driveway.  The snow muffles all sound so it is amazingly quiet, beautiful and really great exercise.

Several months after we moved into the house a letter addressed to me and mailed to good old General Delivery, our address for the duration of the stay in the motel. That was not the only letter that arrived late or not at all but this one was from Barney.  

Words

Finally the day came when the house was officially done.  Goodbye to seven weeks of residence at the Holiday Inn, eating out three times a day and trying to think of things to do other than stare at the four walls of what had become a very tiny room.   As exciting as it was to be moving in it was also much more difficult than moving out.

Every move is hard on all your belongings.  Things do get broken, scratched, dented or lost and having to put things into storage counts as two moves - in the truck at the previous house, out of the truck into storage, into the truck to be delivered and out of the truck into the new house.  Dennis was not very happy that somehow in all the melee the hood of our 1950 black Mercury had a huge dent all the way across the hood. Did not make for a happy day.

I think while they were unloading the truck a multitude of landscaping companies began arriving at the door.  Each came with a detailed drawing of what our yard should look like all of which looked pretty similar to everyone else's.  We settled on one and in a day's time we had grass, trees, shrubs, lava rock filled flower beds and a few flowers.  Sorting out the house would take much longer but there really was no reason to hurry.  Besides there was something more pressing that needed to be taken care of first.

My class reunion was scheduled for two weeks after we moved into the house. Dennis had known about it since I had sent the money in for our reservations months before.  When I mentioned it a few days after we moved in he informed me we certainly could not go since we had just moved into the house. I actually said that "we" may not be going but I certainly was.  Silence.......for days.

For days I went from being so excited at the thought of getting to see all the people I grew up with after twenty years that it was hard to get anything done.  I bought a new dress for the banquet, a dress that I actually felt pretty in.  Somehow I had gotten in contact with my only girl friend besides Lisa, my next door neighbor, Pat.  She only went to Muskogee Central her junior and senior years and did not really feel like it was her class but agreed to come. She was going to stay with me at Dennis's parents house so we could gossip and giggle.

Then on other days I wondered why I was making such a big deal of this.  No one would even remember who I was as I was not one of the so called popular girls.  Would everyone have changed and I would not even recognize anyone?  Maybe it would be better for everyone if I just stayed home as I had the feeling I was setting myself up for another huge disappointment. But going to the reunion was important to me.  All the moving around the country, making friends and the losing contact with them as your life changes takes it's toll.  I had the need to go "home" to see people I had spent eighteen years with and shared the growing up years with.

We left Michigan on a Thursday for the reunion.  Dennis was not happy about it but I had planned, organized and executed his reunion a few years before all by myself so I figured he owed me this one. I poured over my high school yearbook to study up on all the people I would try to recognize. Lisa had said I should come to help decorate on Friday afternoon and I had to meet Pat in Muskogee so I was looking forward to seeing a small group of people first.

The reunion that year consisted of a get together around the indoor pool at  - of all things - a Holiday Inn on Friday night.  Saturday afternoon was a family get together at Honor Heights Park and Saturday night was a dance at the Muskogee Country Club. It was a very nervous drive into Muskogee around noon to meet Pat and to help decorate. Anyone who grew up in Muskogee can't go back without going to Chet's for a chili dog.  Dennis would never go to Chet's so that was my first stop and there were three of my classmates there all whom recognized me when I walked in the door. What ever doubts I had about coming home for the reunion vanished as I ate my chili dog and laughed with friends I had not seen in twenty years.

I was overwhelmed by everyone that was there to decorate in that they all remembered me, thought I had lost weight and that I looked okay after twenty years.  By the time Pat arrived and we headed back to Warner I was on cloud nine although I knew to temper it down for Dennis to just the decorating went fine.  I could tell when we left to go to the get together he was not happy but having Pat with us he really could not say much. I know it is hard for spouse's who are not a member of the class to feel comfortable and I did try to include him in conversations but it was difficult. It was fun for me because I could easily recognize almost every one.  There was so much laughter over all the silly things we did back then. Pat and I shared a room at Dennis's house so we spent a lot of the night remembering silly things about those school years.

Saturday afternoon we took the boys to the gathering at the park.  It was fun to see everyone with their children.  Wes and Wally had plenty of room to run and play and I did manage to get Dennis to go to Chet's so the boys were introduced to their first Chet's chili dog - with cheese, of course. They were hooked on their first bite. On the way back to Warner I was noticing how quiet Dennis had become and did begin to worry some, but thank heavens for Pat being with us.

By the time we left to go to the Country Club I could tell Dennis was about to explode over the all reunion stuff.  All I could get were one word answers, if that and did worry about what time he would pick to explode even having Pat with us.  We managed to make it to the club and in the door okay.  There were a lot more classmates at the dance that I had not seen so there were more smiles and hugs.  We found a table to sit at with some of my favorite classmates.  I will say here that Dennis does not dance.  Ford Motor Company had dinner and dance things all the time and he still was cordial.  I was not so lucky this time.

Perhaps it was my mistake that when someone asked me to dance and I jumped at the chance.  Maybe I should have just sat at that table and not talked to anyone.  At some point in the evening Dennis suggested we go outside for a minute.  I should have refused but I was still trying hard to get through the evening.  I can not repeat what he said to me outside since I try not to use words like that but somehow I managed to not say anything back to him, as usual, and hold it together long enough to get to the backroom where I sat and cried for thirty minutes.

A couple of things about crying that night.  One is that when I cry my eyes swell up sometimes to the point where I can hardly see.  Not a good thing.  In the bathroom I was trying very hard not to cry but a ladies bathroom is a pretty busy place.  Pat and Lisa were trying to console me and every time someone else came in and asked what was wrong I burst into tears. Lisa tried to get me to be mad and in her infinite way used all those words I don't write here to describe Dennis. I would laugh for a minute and then burst into tears.  Needless to say that was the end of my evening. I went out of the bathroom, picked up my purse and headed out the door.  Dennis followed and the three of us headed back to Warner in total silence. There have been many times through the years I have cringed at the thought of the scene I made in the bathroom. Could I ever go back to another reunion after that one?

Maybe I should have known Dennis would behave the way he did.  It was pretty typical of how he behaved for twenty years but I never pushed him to the breaking point. There were countless times that I wanted to do something but would back down to keep the waters calm.
I stopped skating except with the boys, I moved around the country without really complaining, I dropped friends he did not like, did not see my family as much as I wanted or should have, gone to countless company affairs I hated with people I did not want to be around and he could not let me have one weekend with all the people I grew up with.
That weekend goes down as one of the best from the aspect of all my classmates and also the absolute worst weekend of my life because of Dennis.

We headed back to Michigan the next morning. Dennis was all of a sudden being normal. I did my best to refrain from crying again.  The really interesting thing is that he never mentioned anything about the entire weekend.  Nothing.  It was like those three days never existed or that nothing happened at all.  I wanted to tell him how hurt, angry and disappointed I was with him.  Why did he have to ruin everything I wanted to do?  But I did not know how since every time I tried to tell him he was wrong he had always turned it around to make me out the bad person. I also did know that not standing my ground all those years added to his behavior towards me.

Remember the old phrase you learned when you were growing up that said "Sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words can never harm me"?  Well that is totally wrong.  Bones can heal but words hang in the little folds of your brain forever.  Words can never be taken back or forgotten.

When we arrived home I did my usual thing and reverted back into the lady who did the wash, the ironing, cleaned the house and had dinner on the table at 5:15.  The yard was always mowed by Friday afternoon and the cars were washed.  I took the dress I bought for the reunion to Goodwill as every time I saw it in the closet I started to cry.  But I also made some changes that were not very noticeable in the beginning.

Is The Worm Slowly Beginning To Turn?

The trip to Oklahoma was a nice break from the motel.  Wes and Wally had a good time being able to run around, go fishing and not having to be couped up in one room or on the endless sight seeing trips. I enjoyed it myself in that I did not have to come up with things to do every day and had a break from not being responsible for everyone else's happiness. It is anyone's guess if or when Dennis was ever happy. 

The rather awful part of returning to the motel after the trip to Oklahoma was the feeling that we were "home"!  That was a pretty sad thought but we had been living there for six weeks and by the looks of the house it would be at least another four weeks before we could move in.  School was to start a few days after Labor Day and hopefully we could be living in the house by then.

There is some truth in the old saying "misery loves company"  as it was nice to have Cindy, Jerry and their son, Bryce, join us as extended stay guests at the motel.  Ford had transferred Jerry into the home office and they had decided to build a home in the same subdivision as ours.  We had first met them in Dallas and they spent a day with us when we rented the beach house in New Jersey so we were not great friends but at least Cindy and I had each other to talk to and the boys had Bryce to hang out with.

Picking out all the options for the house was not as much fun as it sounded like.  This was the third house we had built and the other two things like the flooring, lighting, landscaping etc. were included in the price on the contract you signed.  Of course you could pay a little extra and upgrade somethings but in Michigan all of that could be added to the contract or you could pay for them yourself.  Dennis had decided to pay for the options out of our pocket and keep the balance of the mortgage from not getting any larger.  Perhaps if he had ever shopped for the things he would have done this a little differently.

The lights needed to be first and there were two stores that Mr. Rossi recommended.  I by passed the first one with the valet parking and the free wine while you shopped and went to the one that had be in business for fifty-seven years with no frills. If the economy depended on me to go shopping it would be out of luck.  I only go shopping when I desperately need something and then I have to think about what I am going to buy for a few days.  Getting things for the house did not leave me time to think so much as it an was an impulse buy - for better or for worse. As they loaded all the boxes in the car I knew Dennis would not be happy with the bill which he wasn't.

Lucky for me Cindy volunteered to entertain the boys on my second day out shopping.  Paint was easy since Dennis informed me we would probably only live in the house for about two years and then get transferred so I just had them paint in some off-white color.  I could always redo it later.  Flooring was pretty eas, tile in the bathrooms, entry, kitchen and breakfast area, wood parquet for the library, and 
nondescript beige carpet in the rest of the house except the family room. The family room was my big mistake. Wool Berber carpet was suddenly very popular. I had redone a house in Kansas City that had thirty year old wool carpet and upon cleaning it looked brand new.  So in my infinite wisdom I picked a wool Berber for the most used room in the house.  Somehow in all the hullaboo about how wonderful the carpet was they forgot to mention that because the Berber was a looped carpet, not a straight cut carpet, it pills much like a wool sweater. I cursed that carpet every time I had to crawl around the floor getting rid of the little balls of wool.  Dennis cursed me, Michigan, the builder and anyone else he could think about when I presented that bill to him.  

Ever since we had moved into the motel and would drive over to see the construction of the house we would pass the Bonadventure Skating Rink.  If you missed some of my blogs from several years ago I told how much I loved to roller skate.  Lessons when I was twelve, two roller skating shows the next two years and skating every Sunday afternoon at the Stardust Skating Rink in Muskogee.  It was my most favorite place in the world and I would rather skate (or Dance) than do anything else.  When I married Dennis we went skating one night at an outdoor rink in Fort Worth and after I skated circles around him, did a few turns and could skate backwards he said never to ask him to go skating again (he could hardly stand up on skates).  So I only got to go if the boys had a skating party to attend or when Wes's Mother's Day Out place went on Friday afternoons. 

You can't imagine how hard it was to drive by the rink but one morning we noticed a lot of cars at the rink and I decided to go in and take a look. Wow! It looked a lot different then Stardust.  It was fairly new, a beautiful wood floor and huge.  One whole wall was glass with chaser lights behind it and there was a huge video screen that would play music videos. Do I need to say it was love at first sight?   That morning when we stopped in was an adults only session that they had from 10:00 to 12:00 each Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  The schedule was amazing in that Wednesday night was family night, Thursday was adults only, Friday and Saturday night was everyone and there were Saturday and Sunday afternoon skate times.

Wes and Wally had both been skating since they turned four years old.  I taught them early as they were my excuse to go.  As a rule I never skate on rented skates but mine were somewhere packed in a box in storage at the moving company.  Bonadventure was so tempting that I broke my rule and one Wednesday night I took the boys skating, even invited Dennis to go along.  He declined and off we went. Everyone at the rink was very friendly, even the young man who owned the rink.  I have to say I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  There was something about  rolling around to the music of Prince, Wham, Cindy Lauper, Huey Lewis and others that you forgot everything in the world.  Sort of like great therapy along with exercise as there was never anything else that could make me forget every care in the world than a few circles around a skating rink.

That first night of going back to skating had not only the boys but me hooked.  It is interesting how one night can be so life changing as that one night was.  Life was about to get very interesting.

Note:  This blog/story is number 200 that I haven written since I took the suggestion of a dear friend who suggested I write a travel blog about a trip I went on.  After the trip I decided it was rather fun and looked for else to write about.  Did a few on renovating two buildings and for lack of anything else to write about I settled on the story about me.  Life has it's ups and downs, good and bad but that is what makes it fascinating and fun.  I am thankful for all my readers and appreciate your comments.  Hopefully you learn something about your own life and that we all make mistakes and have winning moments.