On Leaving England Episode 3 (or "Why is our Mattress wrapped around the piano?"

So we arrived in Selma in time for Christmas (what must have been the hottest Christmas on record...it was 89 degrees and we were unused to the heat now and so were all sick!) We had managed to save everything from the blazing car but my wonderful fantastic dance all night leather like butter boots. I wept. What happened to them is anyone's guess, but Mac and the wrecker driver had gone back up to the car after the gun battle was over, to retrieve our belongings. Luckily Digby didn't have a pecan allergy as the clerk had fed her three bags while we lay behind the counter. She ate them, all the time bemoaning the fact that they weren't chitt'lins, but they'd do. So does the wrecker driver's wife now sport a pair of Italian hand made boots to dance through the night? I don't know, knowing men, they probably lay beside the highway till some hitchhiker wandered along not believing their luck and pulled them on to continue their trek across America. Suffice it to say I've never had a pair of boots before or since that could make my feet so happy. So after Christmas , we loaded the new car we had purchased. It was more of a boat that a car, a Custom Cruiser Oldsmobile station wagon that could sleep six. Gas was cheap in 83, what did we care? So off we went, headed for Colts Neck, New Jersey and our new duty station. Mac was to report aboard the USS Nitro on January 5th. It took us two days to get there. Mama had found us a motel that accepted dogs (since Digby would have been a little difficult to stick under my coat and sneak in) and made the reservations for us. We arrived via the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway in a state that was the exact opposite of what we had been lead to believe in. I guess it's the way the South is portrayed as a bunch of poorly educated ignorant hillbillies and New Jersey is portrayed as the toilet of New York City that had us confused. Just as we actually have halls of learning and genteel people in the South, so does New Jersey have lovely people and believe me, they don't call it the Garden State for nothing! New Jersey is beautiful (at least the parts we saw). We located the base nearby an affluent horse farm, Due Process Stables. We reported to the Housing Office to make arrangements for a place to live. That taken care of, Mac found the road that would take him to the piers where the ship, the USS Nitro, was tied up. We were assigned a house within the week and on the fifth of January Mac reported aboard his new duty station. We were told that our furniture would arrive sometime in April. APRIL???

Somehow it had never occurred to me that the furtiture and goods would be coming by ship? Why didn't I realize that? Where was my head? So, Mac reported to the Nitro on the fifth, we moved into the empty house (except for kitchen appliances...no washer and dryer though) purchased a tv and you know those big foam fold out "I'm a sofa I'm a bed" things? We bought three of those. January 6th, we were set. January 7th, my birthday, I had the pleasure of taking Mac to the pier to board the ship which was pulling out for a three month cruise! Life as we knew it was back to normal. On January the 8th it snowed. And snowed. And then it snowed some more. I have had a love affair with snow since I was a small child. That January 7th ended the affair. Forever. Now the only snow I want to see is the kind that falls during the night and is gone in the morning. Just after I finish my first cup of coffee.

The neighbors came out to greet us and were kind enough to loan us the use of dining table and chairs, a couple of easy chairs for the living room and the use of their laundry facilities on a rotating basis. Navy people are great people...they pitch in and help like family. It's where I met Evil Sister and the Doc...(he was a corpman). Evil Sister moved in (the Doc being on the ship and gone) in the house behind us pretty soon after we moved in. We became close friends quickly, as did our kids. We suffered through snow and ice, snow shovels leaned against both our back stoops so we could shovel our way to each other's houses for the inevitable games of Scrabble that consumed our afternoons. Digby spent as much time at Evil Sisters as I did. Finally, April arrived and so did our household goods that had been sent from England. I had the bill of lading in hand and checked off the numbers on the boxes as they came out. When that was done, 15 boxes were unaccounted for. I watched as they brought out the bedroom furniture, first the boys, then ours. The two boxed up box springs for our king sized bed came out and I looked inside for the mattress box. There was no box with a mattress in it...I climbed into the truck, the inspector close at my heels and that's when I saw it. What once had been a Sealey Posturpedic King Size mattress, now protected my antique upright piano...it was wrapped around it and taped. I SAID WRAPPED AROUND IT AND TAPED! It had been that way since the middle of December. It was now April. The inspector had the good grace to look surprised and announced that "this is going to have to be replaced." I looked him in the eye and sarcasm dripping like honey said, "you think?" And I thought a gunfight at the Interstate was bad? By the time we had everything unpacked and accounted for or not, the government owed me roughly $3500.00. Oddly enough, they didn't even argue the point. All it took was the bill of lading with the empty check marks and a picture of my mattress which looked roughly like the letter U. And so, we were home. At least for a little while.

And a very special PS

9 years ago today, a baby girl was born into the family, and she has steadily stolen our hearts and pitted Grandma against Grandpa as to who is the favorite...but you know, Grandma wins! Happy Birthday Arianna, you are the Jewel in our Crowns