Beyond the South End

Moving Again

The Clampetts move to Beverly Hills. Photo by tv.com

 

 

I am not a good mover. Every time I have to pick up and move on I get the same anxiety attacks I get when I have to get onto a plane. After I’m safely ensconced in my seat on the plane, I’m fine. The same goes for new digs. Even though everything is in a mess, I don’t care. As long as I know I’ll be there for a good while I’m ok.

Well, here we go again. Nanci and I have been in this apartment in Georgia for four years come Halloween of this year. We wanted to stay here until such time as we could pick up and move to Maine for good. Best laid plans don’t always come true.

Enter new management for this huge complex we live in. The powers that be have decided to upgrade the section we live in. New granite counter tops, hardwood floors and the works. Sounds nice, huh? Not so. In a chat with the new manager, she informed me that the new upgrades would cost us at least $100-$150 more a month in rent. We can’t afford that.

But wait. There is a section called Phase Two, a four-story building at the other end of the complex. Those apartments will not be upgraded and we will be able to move into one of those apartments with no transfer fee. We are on the list as we speak. Hopefully, we’ll get an apartment like this one, which is ideal for our use. We may even have a lower rent payment. In any event, our lease is good where we are till Halloween. An agent assured me they’ll have an apartment for us to move into by then or sooner.

Only problem is, we’ll have to pay Two Men and a Truck again to move us over a couple streets. Then there’s the problem of moving the washer and dryer and hooking them up right. A call to Sears and a service call will probably be the answer to that. More money. Plus there are some other disassemble and re-assemble problems.

We had planned on giving some of this stuff to Goodwill before we leave for Maine. Now we still have to use it in the new apt. Thus we have to pack everything. I am throwing as I pack and shredding unwanted paper to be used for packing. Smart, huh?

Sixteen Moves in 49 Years

In the 49 years since I graduated from the UofM at Machias, if I remember correctly, I have moved sixteen times. Some of the moves make good stories so I thought I’d tell you about some of them.

The first apartment was on Fern Street in Kittery, Maine, where college classmate, Lucy Valiante and I moved to. It was one room and a galley kitchen in an attic apartment. The ceilings were even slanted. There was an enclosed chimney in the center of the big room with seating attached around it. We had one closet to share as teachers in the local school system. In those days we dressed to kill every day and wore two-inch heels.

Sleeping arrangements consisted of one twin bed in the corner and a sleeper sofa under the eave at the other end which we took turns using on a bi-weekly basis. We also had one overstuffed chair. I don’t think we even had a TV. The bathroom facilities were in the hall and were shared with two guys who lived on the other side of the attic. We worked out an arrangement with them which, surprisingly, worked quite well.

We had no phone nor did our landlady allow one. She had a bell system to tell us when we had a call and we’d have to go downstairs to answer it, with her listening to everything we said.

I have my mother to blame for this first apartment as she liked the landlady and knew she’d keep a good eye on us. As it turned out, we had a lot of fun in Kittery and learned to get used to our living arrangements.  Besides, Lucy made some killer lasagna in that little kitchen. After all, there was the shipyard with all those Marines guarding it; an Air Force Base; and even a Navy facility. We were never at a loss for a date on a Saturday night.

That first summer, Lucy went home to Connecticut and I shared a small vacation trailer near Hampton Beach, in New Hampshire, with three other teachers who were friends. What I remember about that place is that when I moved out, I left some kitchen stuff on the little porch and someone stole them. My mother claimed it on her insurance somehow and I got some new stuff that way. I stayed with Lucy and her family in Norwalk, Connecticut after that summer until we both got new teaching jobs there.

Lucy and I and another teacher then moved into a back apartment on Farmington Avenue in Hartford. There was one bedroom and we had bunk beds and a single bed. We had no windows except for the one which looked out at the fire escape. We had other teacher friends in the building and a couple guys who were friends of theirs.

We all hung out together, going on ski trips to Vermont several times. That place was also party central with people coming in and out of two of the apartments. We had a TV stolen that way. Lucy, Anne, and I moved into a better apartment in the front later on. We used to sit in the front windows and watch the goings on on Farmington Avenue, which actually ran from one end of Hartford to the other.

The other three teachers in the building and we three moved later on to a house in West Hartford. There were six of us who took turns cooking dinner for everyone on a weekly basis. When two of the girls got married and Lucy took a job teaching overseas in Japan, the group split up.

I had my first apartment on my own on Fern Street (again) in Hartford. It was in an older house that had been split into two apartments. I had one room and a kitchen and bath. I slept on a sleeping porch, when I managed to sleep. At that point, I was working third shift at a printing plant. The kids would come in to stand in the hallway between the two apartments in the winter to wait for the school bus. Needless to say, sleep was interrupted very often.

Being alone and needing some companionship, I acquired a mackerel tabby which I named Sylvester. He was the first in a long line of cats to come. I used to put him in the basket of my bike and pedal down to the beautiful park at the end of my street.

After Fern Street, I moved into a new fancy complex in West Hartford, then to a triplex in Bristol Connecticut; and finally to a trailer in a park in Meriden, Connecticut.

Georgia Digs

When I moved to Georgia with a friend we lived in a trailer park in a brand new trailer in Lawrenceville. When I moved out on my own again, I lived in another apartment complex in Norcross, a duplex in Norcross, in a single-wide trailer and then to the double-wide Nanci and I lost in the flood. Hence the apartment we live in now.

So here we are again, packing. Every time I move I swear it will be the last time. Well I know that isn’t true this time as there will be one more move--to Maine. Then I swear it will be THE LAST TIME!

Thanks for listening.