Introduction

Many important family events happened while we lived in Maryland. Unlike most of the events I have related in earlier chapters of this autobiography, for the years when I worked at NAC I have our calendars to consult. On them we kept lots of information about our comings, goings, and doings. For that reason I can attach exact dates to family happenings.

Home Life on Eutaw Street in College Park

Darlene had been able to come to Washington for a couple days in preparation for moving her USIA work to Maryland University. We did some house hunting, and had been lucky to find a house under construction in College Park near the university. Of course, since our house in Culver City had not sold, we had to do some creative financial work to scrape together the down payment. By cashing in all our savings and borrowing more from the credit union, we made ends meet. The builder assured us we could move in September 1, 1969. This was about the time Darlene and Greg planned to arrive. It was exciting to think about moving into a brand new house!

True to his promise, the builder had our home on Eutaw Street ready on time. A few days after Darlene arrived, we moved in. Of course, we didn’t have much to move in except the items from the trailer and what Darlene had brought in the car. We learned of a place that sold furniture used in houses and apartments as they were being shown to perspective renters and/or buyers. There we found a table and six chairs that we are still using today in 1999. I believe the price was $60. With chests, beds and a divan from Sears, we set up housekeeping in our new home.

Our kitty Ginger wasn’t as happy as we in the new house. For days she would hide in the far corner of our bedroom closet. She couldn’t find anything familiar to her. Gradually, we got her to come out by moving her food further and further away from the closet.

Greg arrived from California just in time to enroll in High Point High School. The morning he and I stood in line to enroll him, I could see that he might be headed for a problem. Greg was the only boy with long hair and I could see the looks he was getting. We soon learned that there were school rules about the length of boys’ hair. They didn’t want any of those California hippies in their school!

Greg tried to get in the band, but was told that the band had practiced all summer and no one was allowed in at this time. He then enrolled in choir, which proved to be a real blessing. His teacher, Jim Hansen, immediately took special note of him, and was sympathetic to his right to wear his hair as he wished. He also learned very soon that Greg was an asset to his choir. He began to give him special privileges and later made him the student director.

Jim was the cantor at the Washington Cathedral. Once when he wanted to take a vacation, he groomed Greg to take his place. That was quite an experience for him, and incidentally, for his parents. Greg said some of the nuns thought he was a priest!

Greg and Jim developed a real friendship and have kept in touch with each other all these years. Jim has been in California and visited in Greg’s home.

Jim was a fine musician and teacher. We were always thrilled to hear his groups perform. When he left the teaching profession, it was a real loss to any students who might have been able to be in his classes. Because of his influence, Greg took music education for his major when he started to the University of Maryland.

The school principal and some of the other teachers were not so sympathetic to this longhaired California boy. There were some other confrontations, but gradually some of the other boys began to wear their hair a little longer. Since the school authorizes knew they couldn’t expel students and get away with it, the controversy gradually abated.

I could tell more stories about Greg’s adjustment from liberal California to conservative Maryland. However, they belong more in his autobiography so I’ll let him tell them. Incidentally, we learned in several instances that Maryland was a "southern" state and in some people prejudices along the racial issue still ran high.

Since the basement in our new home was unfinished, making a shop and studio in it was my first priority. Greg and I covered the walls and put up partitions. We soon had a place for all the tools we had brought with us, and a room where we could view television and show 16mm films.

Greg was into recording, not only music, but also dialog. Especially after he joined the radio club at the University of Maryland, he and a friend enjoyed recording all kinds of make-believe broadcasts. We soon began to call the basement room our recording studio. Incidentally, this later led to Greg's opening a radio station with three friends at a nearby town. They had lots of fun there one summer until they got into licensing trouble.

Although we missed our piano, we knew that our front room would not accommodate a grand piano. For a few months we rented a small upright, but it really didn’t sound much like my baby grand and none of us enjoyed playing it. After our basement was finished, we realized that the grand would fit nicely in it. It was a happy day when the piano arrived from California and was in place downstairs.

We had a joyous first Christmas in Maryland. My Mom and Darlene’s father came from Kansas, Glenda and Doug came from Texas, and Jean came from California. Now that I think about it, I wonder where they all slept. Of course, we still had the trailer so I suppose we used it. We had a divan that made into a bed in the front room and some kind of cots in the basement. It even snowed on Christmas Day and that was the first time any of us, except our Kansas parents, had had a white Christmas for a number of years.

On New Year’s Day, 1970, a new member came into our family. One of Greg’s friends had found a collie puppy in the street. After he was unable to find the owner and knew he couldn’t have the dog in his apartment, he offered him to Greg. I can still remember when Greg brought in that cute little dog who was wagging his tail and saying, "Please keep me!"

We named him Rusty. At first he chewed everything in sight. One of his favorite places to chew was the stairs down into the basement. I’m not sure Darlene was too happy about having a dog at first. She had always been a cat lover and had always claimed she didn’t like dogs. She still feels much the same today, but has to admit that Rusty was an exceptional dog. The vet said he appeared to be a "pure-bred" collie. Through the years Greg and his wife have always had collies. Darlene may not be a lover of just any dog yet, but she has to admit that their collies have won her over. On the contrary, I have been a dog lover since my childhood, and I had never had one since my dog Rover died when I was in college.

Our street was just one short block long. It was at the edge of town and at the end was a wooded area. Greg and I had lots of fun with Rusty in those woods. For me taking Rusty for walks in the trees made me remember my days on the farm with Rover.

When Greg married, his wife Rhonda bought a mate for Rusty. They called her Jennie. She had one set of beautiful collie pups and they had no trouble finding homes for them. I missed Rusty when Greg and Rhonda moved to California.

In May Jean graduated from the University of Redlands. That meant a trip back to California. While we were there we first met Brian, who was to become our son-in-law a year later.

In June Greg graduated from High Point High School. Greg's senior year in a new school and community turned out OK in a number of ways. He had make several very good friends, he had the lead in the school play and was student choir director. He also had many hours of fun with Rusty. He had the use of our truck and trailer which gave him lots of freedom. However, he still had the yearning to go back to California. We told him he could take the truck and we would pay for his gasoline. Also when and if he was ready to come back, we would pay for his gasoline.

At first he planned to enroll in college in California. However, when he got there, he got a job and decided to work for a semester. Then suddenly in November, we got a call saying he wanted to enroll at the University of Maryland. Of course, we were happy about that and quickly called the University. Since we were told that the deadline for enrolling was only a couple days away, Darlene went immediately to pick up the necessary paper work.

Greg came home from California in time to start at the University of Maryland in January, 1971. On his return trip he stopped in Kingsville, Texas, where his sister Glenda lived. That visit had important implications for all of us for many years to come. Glenda persuaded him to bring home a little kitten she had found wandering in the street. That kitten was Patches.

Calling Patches a little kitten was our error. She was already a cat old enough to have kittens of her own. In May she had two babies, one black and one yellow. We gave the black one to a neighbor and kept the yellow one. We named him Sunny. Of course, if you are a cat lover, you will understand how much pleasure Sunny and Patches gave us through the years.

Now seems like a good time to tell about our Sunny. He may not have had nine lives, but he surely had at least three. When Greg was married in New York, we all had to be out of town for a couple days. Greg and Rhonda took their two dogs and two cats to a kennel. As they were getting out of the car, Sunny ran away. After using all the time they had to hunt him, they called us to continue the search. We were in town another couple days so both Glenda and we drove all around the area and left signs everywhere, but no luck. Weeks later, we got a call from the people at the kennel. A family who lived near had reported that a cat kept coming around their house every evening looking for food. They thought that maybe someone had reported the loss of a beautiful yellow kitty. Luckily, the folks at the kennel still remembered about Sunny and called us. How happy we all were to have our kitty back home. That was his second life.

Some time after Greg moved to California he called to tell us that Sunny hadn't been home at feeding time for several days. Days went into weeks, when one day Greg saw Sunny stumbling down the hill by their home. A car had evidently hit him. The vet reported that his shoulder was shattered and ordinarily he'd advise putting such an animal to sleep. However, he said that as he was in the process of studying just that part of a cat's anatomy, he'd really like to try to fix Sunny and that he'd do it for a reasonable price. I'm not sure how reasonable $200 is, but suppose it could have been much more. Anyway, he evidently did a good job as Sunny mended perfectly, and seemed fine the rest of his life. He was nineteen years old when he died. We had already moved back to Culver City by then and we buried him in the corner of our backyard.

The important event for our family during 1971 was Jean and Brian's wedding. They were married in a small Catholic Church in Redlands near the university from which they had graduated. Darlene flew back early to help in the preparations. Greg and I drove back, picking up my Mom in Kansas on our way. Unfortunately, Darlene’s Dad was ill and couldn’t come with us. We were sorry he had to miss Jean’s beautiful wedding and the happy family gatherings afterward.

The wedding was unique in that both a Baptist minister who taught at the university and the Catholic priest took part in the ceremony. Such a liberal priest was hard to find in those days. In fact, I doubt there are very many even today. He even said it would be OK for us Methodists to take communion if we so desired.

We felt doubly blessed at the time. We were pleased to see our daughter married to a fine young man whose family seemed just as pleased about the affair. Also at the wedding we were able to see dear friends we had left behind when we moved East. Although we had been living in Maryland for two years, some of our Culver City friends gave Jean a lovely bridal shower. Even though Redlands is eighty miles from Culver City, the ladies from our former church also came to serve the wedding reception.

One of the reasons our friends remember Jean’s wedding was my wig. When I met Jim Gibson, my new boss at NAC, he wore a wig. He persuaded me they were great for protection of baldheads, both from the summer sun and from the winter cold. My baldhead was certainly a prime candidate for at least a trial to see if he were correct. I wore one for some time and had to agree with him about the value. Of course, our friends back in California hadn’t seen me in my wig until I walked my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Imagine their surprise to see that since I had left California I had "grown" a head of hair!

Another important family event in the year 1971 was Doug’s transfer by the Navy from Kingsville, Texas, to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Now he and our daughter Glenda were lots closer to us. We were happy for that. Fewer miles between our two families became even more important to all of us when Debra Noel, our first grandchild, was born on December 30. Now we could see the family often.