By Bonnie
When Jack and I decided to get married and have children, we knew we needed a bigger house. As it happened, the house out front on Madison Avenue was being vacated and would soon be up to be rented. We inquired about the landlord and went to see him about renting the house. He let us rent it, and we moved everything in one day from the studio above the garage, to the 2 bedroom house. It wasn't fancy, it didn't have a tub, just a shower. But I was with the man of my dreams and I couldn't have cared less! On the first night in our new place, we went down to Ceasar's and bought dinner and took it home and sat on the floor and ate our first meal together in our new abode! This house had 2 bedrooms with doors that led to the bathroom and you could go from one bedroom to the next. The living room was long and narrow, and the place smelled of fish when we turned the heater on after we moved in! It seems someone had an aquarium and one of the fish jumped out of the tank and into the furnace which was a floor furnace! Even that didn't dissuade us! We wanted to have room for a baby and the house was a big improvement from the studio. We had many great times in the studio, but if we were going to be serious, we definitely needed a bigger place. We had very little in the way of setting up housekeeping. We had some silverware and the pot's and pan's that we had bought separately. Jack had some odds and ends of his grandmother's things, and that came in handy. We didn't have even a toaster, or a coffee maker, or a can opener! We were going to have to buy things to make it more like home and we were up for the adventure. We had a bed for us of course, but nothing for the new member of the house that hadn't even be conceived yet! Little did we know what was in store for us. But I've already covered that, I just wanted to give a little back story that should have come before. I loved our little house. I had a wonderful man in my life that wanted to be my husband, and I was thrilled to have a little house of our own. I missed it for a long time after we moved. Our son Alex had asthma and the house was rather cold and drafty in the winter. He was sick a lot and needed a dryer climate, so we started looking for a place east of us in Spring Valley where it was warmer and he would fare better. Every time he caught a cold, it turned into pneumonia! They gave him a medication that I don't know how to spell, but it would make him cough and cough and finally cough up the congestion in his lungs. He was a little thing and it was just too hard on him to stay in North Park. I had mentioned to a friend of mine at the IRS that we were looking for an apartment, and had found one, but didn't have the deposit saved up yet. She was very generous in helping us out and had talked to her husband about loaning us money from their tax return. The only thing he wanted was for us to sign a paper agreeing to pay them back. He was an accountant and liked to keep things up and up. That was no problem for us. We were waiting on our tax return as well. I found an apartment in Spring Valley, and the place was brand new. It had 2 large bedrooms, a really big living room, a nice kitchen and dining room and a bathroom with a tub! They even had a dishwasher and I was thrilled to be living in a new place! It was bright and sunny, but I still missed our old place because it was our beginning of the Tyler Family. The day we had to move, my friend, Diane and her husband Jim watched all 3 kids for us! We made so many trips back and forth to get things moved, and when we were finished moving, Jack put the bed's together and we went to get the kids. We were dirty and tired and we had 3 little ones to bring home and put to bed for a good night's sleep. When we got to Diane's house, she had bathed the kids, and Jim had gone out to Kentucky Fried Chicken to buy dinner for everyone. They were some of the nicest people I'd ever met, and we all were so grateful to them for helping us out. We ate, and then thanked them profusely for all their help. We gathered the 3 babies together, and went home to our new place. The kids hadn't seen it yet so they wanted to explore. I think they fell asleep on the way there, so the next morning they were full of energy and explored to their heart's content. We moved on a Friday so we had a chance to rest up before we had to go back to work. I had to find a new babysitter, and we found one that lived across the street from the elementary school they would attend when they got older. The boys were toddlers and Sidra was 9 months old. Her name was Delores, but everyone called her Dee Dee. She would be our sitter for quite a while. The boys only had to walk to the corner and cross the street. As Sidra got older, she became "mommy" to the boys and made sure they had their coats and lunches and whatever they needed for school. She was crazy about babies, and helped Dee Dee to potty train the little ones. Don't ask me how...she just did. We lived in the new place about 1 year, and then one day while we were at work, the apartment managers let themselves into our apartment and finding chalk on the kitchen wall, they got quite upset with us and told us the week of Thanksgiving that they were giving us a month's notice to vacate the premises. So we started looking for a new place and it took all our Christmas money to get us moved to the new apartment. Our daughter kept asking to go home once we were moved. She loved the first place, and had learned to walk there. That was home to her. A friend of our named Mike, knew a pastor that ran an apartment complex and he talked to him and they found a place for us. It had 3 bedrooms, a smaller living room, a kitchen with dishwasher, and 2 bathrooms with 2 tubs. There was a balcony and Jack loved it. It had a storage shed on the balcony and we had a swimming pool and the laundry was at the foot of the steps. The kids were still with their sitter, and even though we had a very small Christmas, we loved the new place too. We were there for maybe 3 years and the kid's were not allowed to play in the area just outside our apartment. There was a new manager and they were very strict about it. We decided that the kids needed room to grow, so one day, Jack told me to go to work, and he started looking for a house to move us to. Preferably one with a good sized yard so the kids could play outside. They were so little and puny and needed to be out in the fresh air and run and play like normal kids. That evening, he picked me up from work and said he had something to show me. We went to the house, still in Spring Valley, and I was thrilled! It had a big front yard with a good sized tree, and inside the house there were open-beamed ceilings, 3 bedrooms, a bath and 1/2 and a family room with a patio and glass sliding doors. The owner asked me if I liked it, and I certainly did. The kitchen was big and the dinning room as well. There was a back yard and it was so manicured it looked like a park. We settled on a day to move in, and went home and picked up the kids from Dee's house. We decided to take the first day and celebrate and we took the kids to Disneyland! We took blankets and pillows, food, and their pajamas, and we had a ball at Disneyland with the 3 of them. When we got through for that day, we went to the car, opened the back up, put the kids in their pajamas, and tucked them in with the pillows and blankets! Before we left the parking lot they were asleep. We had stayed for the fireworks display as well, and it was hard to stay awake on the way home. We opened the windows and turned the radio on and I think we had to stop at Jack-in-the-Box for coffee. But we made it home fine, and we carried the kids in and put them to bed, and we decided to unpack the car in the morning. The next day we all had fun just being free where no one could come in and tell us how to live and the kids had a ball exploring the new neighborhood. The new landlords were moving quite a way away and wouldn't be popping in unexpected at odd hours. We just relished the idea of freedom and we lived there for the next 17 years. This concludes this session with the Tyler Gang, and we were settled in for a long winter's nap, away from apartments, and managers, and all the rest. We were free at last, and the kids grew 3 sizes that first summer! Hope you enjoyed this "moving" episode and will stay tuned to Tea With the Tylers for the next page in our book of memories!
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This is for the grandkids, the family, close friends, and anyone else who can keep a civil tongue in their heads! It amounts to an interactive book of memoirs, but only if you interact... so get to it!
E-mail subscriptions now availableBonnieCalifornia has been my home since 1965. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm home to stay! JackWhat is there to say about a ten-year old turning 65, besides, what the hell happened?!?? CategoriesArchives
December 2014
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