We Meet At Last #6

The years between 1953 and 1958, I pretty much did as I wanted to do, and mostly I was happy. I did have responsibility's of maintaining my apartments and my car. In 1954 I traded my old Ford for a 1953 Pontiac, this was such a nice car, light green, was automatic shift and no dents or scratches on it, and talk about a smooth ride. I dated off and on, never liked my dates, nothing personal, just was not interested in dating, liked to be on my own, this is a trait of mine, I am still like that, never minding if I do things by myself.

A couple things happened to me when I had my own apartments, I will start with the one mom and I shared. One morning after I was ready for work, I went out to my car, I started it up and let it warm, I thought I would check and see if I had water in the radiator, forgetting that the fan belt was running. If a car had not honked its horn at me, that made me wake up, I said to myself, my gosh if I would of stuck my hand in to check the water, with the fan belt going I would probably lost my hand, or at least cut off some fingers. I was shaking so bad, I could hardly drive to work. The other thing is, I moved out of this apartment when mom moved in with Leon to a one room down town, I had no parking, so they let me park between the road and sidewalk. I came home one night, a man pulled in behind me and bumped my car. I was so scared, I pulled out and went as fast as I could up and down streets. When I had lost him I quickly went back and parked, I ran fast for the door, but the lady downstairs kept it locked, she had a window on the porch, I knocked on it, all the time looking over my shoulder. She let me in the entrance hallway and locked as soon as I was in, I ran up stairs and looked out my windows for hours. This never happened again, I soon after moved in with mom.

I moved in with mom in the spring of 1958, it was different from when she lived with me, she was still drinking but I had a car and would go out after I ate and stay until bedtime. My cousin, Bill was married to my husbands sister at this time, and could not stand it because I was single, he called me an old maid, and in my time you were, if not married by 25 years old. Bills wife Sandy called me at work four or five times a day, remember I was switchboard operator and answered the phones and at that time no way to know who was calling. I finally agreed to meet her brother Friday night, before I went bowling, I told her to come out to Ruths, they knew where she lived.

I was very nervous and not ready to start dating again, I had just broke up with a man that wanted to get married, he was very nice, he became president of his company, what was I thinking. Friday night came, I told Ruth I was expecting someone and would she please get the door. It turned out Wayne did not want to get out of the car, he was too nervous and felt sick at his tummy. I peeked out the window and Bill motioned for me to come out, I put my jacket on and went out to the car and climbed into the back seat. I was introduced by his sister Sandy, they told me to call him Wayne, his first name was Charles, but he did not like the name, he looked really embarrassed when she told me all this. We said Hi and before I knew it, I was asking them to come watch our team bowl, I usually never warmed up to men that quickly. Sandy spoke first and said they would be glad to come along and I was thinking to myself, wait until I get you two alone, grrr.