HOW IT USED TO BE

It’s amazing to me how much of my first few years of marriage I remember. Maybe that’s because it was unlike any thing I ever imagined it would be. Sometimes when I think back on those first few years I wonder how I lived through them and then I know. Laughter. O yeah, it was the best way to deal with things.

The day my husband and I married we put all of our wedding presents and other worldly possessions in the back of a new pickup truck. The truck was a 4 wheel drive International and it cost $3,500. We drove from Pennsylvania to the coast of Oregon non-stop. I thought we were forgoing a honeymoon because my husband had to get back to work. It wasn’t work we were rushing back to it was fishing and hunting. And hunting and fishing. It was important stuff!

All the way across the country, all 3,000 miles of it I had a picture of the place we were going to live. I don’t know where it came from, perhaps something my husband said or maybe didn’t say. But it was a cute little white country house, one that needed work but had great promise. When we arrived at my husband’s house (soon to be mine) at 2:30 in the morning, he pulled up to the mailbox and checked to see what was in it. The headlights from the truck were illuminating the house that was about to become my home. I didn’t like what I saw. In fact I didn’t believe what I saw. So I said, “Good joke! Now take me to your real house.” But it wasn’t a joke. It was really his house. It was butt ugly and not a thing like I imagined!

It was October and chilly. The house was cold and I immediately looked for the thermostat to turn the heat on. I couldn’t find it so I asked my new husband to please turn the heat on. He said, “No problem.” He turned on his heel and went outside. I thought this was odd but maybe in Oregon thermostats were outside. In no time at all he was back inside but his arms were full of kindling wood. I recognized kindling because we had a fireplace at home. We put a fire in it at Christmas and a few other times a winter but we didn’t heat with it. With his kindling he was building a fire in a small wood stove. I had never seen one. As he built the fire he was explaining to me that if I wanted to stay warm I would need to know how to do this. O great I thought, there is no thermostat.

While the fire was warming the stove that would in turn warm the house, I was checking the place out. And I must say I was not encouraged. I was a country girl accustomed to hard work and I don’t think I was spoiled but I really wondered if I was up to this. A new bride, 3,000 miles from home, and if I wanted to stay warm I had to build a fire in something I had never seen before. Actually, it was good I was 3,000 miles from home.

The house had 3 bedrooms and one bath. It was a small bathroom with one of those metal shower stalls that they no longer make (for good reason). The front bedroom is the one my husband had chosen to sleep in, so that’s were we spent the night or what was left of it. I was not about to get in sheets that I did not know were clean. That meant he had to unpack most of the truck to get to sheets I would use. With our new sheets on the bed I was ready to sleep. I decided to take Scarlet O’Hara’s advice- I’d think about all the rest another day. Even if that day was as soon as a few hours away.

I woke up to a noise in the house. When I opened my eyes I saw a girl about my age (21) standing in the doorway with a box of socks. She was just there. No knock, no hello I’m coming in. She was just there. And when I looked at her she began to explain that she had washed my new husband’s socks but there were a lot of mismatched ones. Fascinating information for me on my first day in my new home with my new husband. I felt like I had jumped into another dimension. The conversation woke up Herman (the guy I married) and he introduced me to his best friend’s wife. And then he realized he needed to go see his buddy right away. So he got dressed and left me alone with the sock lady.

My first day in Oregon had begun!