HOW IT USED TO BE

Whenever we make a change in our lives we can sometimes feel like we are in a new world. Getting married was like that for me. I not only became a wife, I moved all the way across the country to the coast of Oregon, a place I had never seen before. It was a new world for me.

A world without thermostats. A world with wood stoves. I learned quickly how to build a fire in a wood stove. Our stove was not airtight so it had a burn time of about 2 hours. That meant if you left for longer than 2 hours when you returned it would be cold. I always tried to be home in 2 hours.

It was also a world of eating fish and venison. My husband was an avid hunter and fisherman. His reason for hunting and fishing was for the food it provided. I didn’t know what to think when he informed me shortly after my arrival that all we would be eating was either salmon, trout, deer, or elk. How long would I survive was the question because I didn’t eat any of those things! But again I was amazed at how quickly I adapted to my new world. I learned to eat (and eventually love) fish and venison. The will to live trumped the taste buds.

It was a world with out television. No kidding, there was no signal. It was before satellites and the mountains that rimmed the valley were so high no antennae would work. I was glad I enjoyed reading and found the library, which I visited once a week.

It was also a world without radio after 6:00 PM. I found one radio station that came in but promptly at six o’clock it would play the national anthem and go silent. If you weren’t comfortable with yourself or your spouse there weren’t a lot of things to distract you. For entertainment the first year, Herman and I read the entire Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs together. I mean we read each page at the same time through all 24 books. He always had to wait for me because he reads faster, even Tarzan books! Talk about bonding, huh?

It was a world without a lot of sunshine. The months of November through March are when it rains more. I arrived in very early October so I saw more rain and less sun the first six months. I learned to do everything in the rain because it doesn’t quit. I bought a rain coat and read more books.

It was a world with party line telephones. A party line telephone was like having all of your neighbors on your telephone line. I grew up with that in Pennsylvania but by the time I had reached my teens we had a private line. Nowadays every line is private. Being on a party line meant I had to be courteous and careful all at the same time. I learned to pick up the receiver and quickly determine if the line was free to make a call, in other words if I didn’t hear a conversation. I also had to be careful to never leave it off the hook. This would effectively render every telephone on the line useless. The careful part was I listened through my own conversations for that telltale sound of someone picking up. Nosy people stayed on the line to listen to what was talked about. It was a great tool for gossipers. I guess they were disappointed progress brought privacy to the phone system.

It was a world with nice, friendly people. I can honestly say I never met anyone who wasn’t friendly except maybe my neighbor Hannah.

I met Hannah one day when I was baking a pie. My hands were covered in flour and dough when I heard a pounding on the front door. Not a polite knock but an angry pounding. I quickly went to the door and as soon as I turned the knob it was pushed in by a rather stout woman. She stood about 4 and a half feet tall and was about 3 feet wide. She did not introduce herself but with hands on her hips she demanded to know where our telephone was. I didn’t understand but meekly pointed to the corner where our black desk phone sat on a little table. In spite of her girth she moved quick to look closely at the phone. What she saw took all the wind from her sails. She turned to face me and what I saw was a different woman. Her angry countenance was gone. She looked ashamed and contrite. She immediately began to apologize for her behavior. She explained that she needed to use the telephone. Every time she tried to use it, it was busy. The logical conclusion was someone had left their phone off the hook. Since I was the new to the neighborhood she made the leap that I was the guilty party. Since she couldn’t call me and ask, she had to come in person. By the time she actually got to our house she was whopping mad!

I accepted Hannah’s apology. We introduced ourselves and began anew. She was now part of my new world and I wanted all the friends I could get.

1 Comment »

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!

No Comments »