Wistful Wednesday : 1980 something

This is a polaroid photo and Far Guy’s Dad took it at the house in Moorhead sometime about 1980-1981.

It was before we had the patio door,  the dining room had been repainted and the wainscoating was up…previously it was some kind of wall paper and navy blue paint.  This was the house we bought when the interest rate was 18 %. UFFDA

Far Guy had hair.  He kinda has his Tom Selleck look going on here.  He worked days and I worked nights.

That is good ole Pansy in the birdcage. She belonged to our oldest daughter Trica. For the life of me I cannot recall when Pansy died.

I do remember how ABC 123 died.

I have heard that when your brain is full it dumps some of the insignificant stuff memories…not that I didn’t like the little bird.  Perhaps her death was peaceful. ( For the record Far Guy doesn’t recall either.)

Wistful Wednesday: 1981

When we ( Far Guy ) was done with Active Duty and we moved back to Minnesota from Florida we lived in an apartment for awhile. Trica called it the brick sidewall.  A name she made up..it had bricks…she was three. I was pregnant with Jennifer.   Apartment living drove us all nuts, I did not want to bring a new baby home to that apartment, where we had to walk the dog on a leash and goodness knows who was roaming the halls at night.  We could not afford a house so we settled into a brand new mobile home in Regal Estates for a few years..six to be exact ( 1975 to 1981).

Thirty years ago we bought our first house in Moorhead Minnesota.

 

In the summer of 1981 the interest rate was 18 1/2 percent. We were in a recession. ( Lets all say Uffda together!)  The house had been a foreclosure. We paid almost as much in interest as we did payments.  The house cost $24,900.00  it had two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, and a living room dining room combined.  It was about 900 square feet.  It did have a basement and a huge fenced backyard with a garden spot.  It was less than one block from the city park, and a block and a half from the neighborhood school. It was perfect..except for the payment..and the fact that we had very little furniture.  I was working nights, Far Guy worked days.  We saw each other either at 1:30AM when I got home from work..or at 6AM when he got up to go to work and Sundays. We didn’t need daycare for the girls..they were six and nine.  I slept after I got them off to school.

We bought furniture and redecorated every room in the house. We re-shingled the garage and built a deck in the backyard…where I hung my collection of wind chimes. It was home for seven years, until we moved to the lake. 

Back in early October we were in North Moorhead and I was driving..and I had my camera..imagine that.

It is still a well kept house..I wonder what it looked like inside? Was the kitchen still country blue and off white with a rust colored linoleum floor?  Was the basement still knotty pine?  Far Guy said “Yup the chimney is still crooked.”

We drove by the school..

This is the corner where the neighborhood school used to be..sadly it is no longer there.  I can still see the double doors that welcomed my children inside..and the playground with the swings with the “soft rocks”.  I could almost hear the children and their friends laughing and talking:)

A Kitten

One chilly Autumn night in 1983 things changed... Memories of Moorhead Minnesota: A Kitten

Jennifer was eight and Trica was eleven, they were outside playing after supper at 5'o'clock. We were very structured back then supper was at 5 and there were no excuses for missing it. I worked nights and Far Guy worked days, if I left for work before five, supper was in the oven or ready to be reheated at the appropriate time. It was the only time of day that we could possibly be together as a family.

The girls came bursting into the house hollering "Mom, Dad come quick!" Not exactly the words that have a calming effect on any parents. "Look what we found !" I am afraid to look. Holy Cats! It is alive! Breathlessly they explain that Jen saw something in the gutter outside on the city street. They are grinning from ear to ear as they extend their treasure. A teeny, tiny newborn kitten. So teeny tiny it still has it's umbilical cord attached, it hangs sadly from it's wet cold little body. It is alive and squeaking. The girls look at me with those sad doe eyes as they say "Mom, you have to help it." Far Guy says "It's a goner." The girls burst into tears. They showed him exactly where they found the kitten and they all walked around the neighborhood searching for the Mama cat, who had obviously just given birth to the squalling little wet creature that I now held in my hands.

No Mama cat could be found, No one had seen a cat or kittens. No one knew of any pregnant cats either.

It was getting dark, Far Guy and the girls came back home. In the meantime I had dried off the kitten and warmed it up. It was so tiny, it weighed maybe 5 or 6 ounces, it was a kitten of three colors, black, white and tan. The girls wanted to know if I thought it was a boy or a girl? It really didn't matter, there was no way this kitten was going to live without a mother. The girls took turns holding it admiring how cute it was, talking to it softly saying "It will be okay, we will take care of you."

Time for a family meeting. How do you explain the laws of nature to two little girls that have fallen head over hills in love with something they found in the gutter. It certainly would have died if they had not found it. They were convinced that they saved it from certain death in the street. If they had left in there in the street untouched would the mama cat have come back for it? We will never know. Our problem at hand was impressing upon the girls that this kitty had ZERO chance for survival. Far Guy finally told them flat out "It will die." Which of course brought them to tears, which of course brought me to tears. The water works are really flowing now. the girls are sobbing, I am trying hard to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from sobbing with them. Far Guy reminds us all "We are dog people, have you girls forgotten that?" Yes, momentarily we have forgotten everything rational.

"Mommy can't you do something? It is so little and all alone." The girls were pleading with me to do something. "Could we feed it? It looks hungry." Could we? But what and how? I gently explained that I knew next to nothing about baby kittens. Sure we had barn cats on the farm but those mama cats would hide their baby kittens and did not bring them out to meet us until their eyes were opened, and they could walk and play and hiss. If we accidentally discovered a litter of kittens the mama cat would move them to a different hiding spot. I never got to see the how and what of the process concerning newborn kittens. . I am clueless..or am I ? More tomorrow:)