Where It All Began

The little house on the right is where it all began for Marsha and I. It is not the same in the picture as it was when we lived there. The addition to the left was added after my parents sold the house. The house had a livingroom kitchen front to back with a tiny bathroom taken out of it. So tiny that if you got into it you had great difficulty turning around. As small as the bathroom in my camping trailer. It had two other very small rooms one for a bedroom and one had a little table and chairs. We had a double bed and you could not walk around it. You had to side step in the small space between the wall and the bed to get in. Marsha was pregnant with Merrie in that house and I used to move a lot when I slept. I was afraid I could hurt the baby because I would move Marsha out of bed as I gradually took over the whole bed in the night. I solved the problem by wearing a belt to bed with a rope that tied me to the bed frame and only allowed me to get to the middle of the bed but no farther. That worked great, Marsha slept, it trained my sleeping, and Merrie was safe. One night I had one of my famous leg cramps that can wake me screaming and I leaped out of bed while tied to the bed frame into that tiny space and the whole bedroom shook. I collapsed the bed in the process. Life was interesting. We were poor that was for sure, but it was during that summer that we made the decision that no matter what Marsha was going back to school for her senior year, even if she was pregnant and we had to struggle with money. I had been day manager of a bowling alley but that was a low paying dead end job so I went back to the Dainty Maid where I could work sixty hours a week and make more money. It was a better paying dead end job. I worked split shift both opening and closing many days. That meant 6AM start and 2 AM finish. I think you have moments in life that convince you that you can make it through anything. Our early life together was one of those times for us. We made every effort and every sacrifice to make sure that we were going to get our educations. Step by step we watched it happen. People laugh or are shocked when I talk about some of what happened that first year and a half. When the weather got cold we moved from the cottage into my parents house. When Merrie was born Marsha took a couple of weeks off from school, from November 13th to Thanksgiving, then my mom took care of Merrie while Marsha went back to school. By January we knew Marsha would be teaching in Wrentham the following year so her step-father got me a job in Wrentham in February working for the highway department. Marsha and Merrie lived with my parents and I lived with her parents. I travelled weekends to be with Marsha and my baby. My mother went back to work every spring on April 1st so she could no longer take care of Merrie. Marsha was doing practice teaching at Wareham High School so Merrie moved to Wrentham with me so her mother could take care of Merrie, while Marsha continued to live with my parents. It is still strange to think of those circumstances and the sacrifices it meant for us in order to reach our goals. When we achieved what we had planned there was a sense that we could accomplish anything we put our minds to. We both actually looked back fondly to those days. It proved our strength of character. In the hard days it gave us a strength that didn't let us quit on each other. One of the trips this summer was back to Onset and looking at the house where I grew up and the beaches where I swam and the bridges I dove off and the little cottage where Marsha and I started family life. I hear many people wish away their challenges. If only life was easier because of A,B, or C. I'm glad life was challenging. I would not change a minute of the difficulty. That is what made us who we became and to me it was the most beautiful thing to see.