Nostalgia captured my heart.
For a minute I was in Honalee. It was magic.
My friend Laura still lives in the same house—down Washington Street—on Sierra Way. She loves entertaining her grandkids in the backyard swimming pool. A couple of Octobers ago, I spent an afternoon visiting with Laura and another friend, Susie, who had moved to another neighborhood. What a fun time we had!
But all good things end. Or change.
Steve took what was supposed to be a dream job—President of McClintock Drilling. They sent him to the main office in New York City. On a three-week tour through Nevada and Arizona. Back to New York. They went broke.
One day, the week Steve heard the news about McClintock folding, I’d just come back from appointments with two doctors. “You’ve got pink eye,” the Ear, Eyes, and Throat MD told me. My OB/GYN said, “You’ve got a vaginal infection.”
My mother chose that time to drop by. She found me in the back yard. Worrying.
“Blah, blah, blah,” my mother complained.
I tried to block her out.
She continued.
At the end of my rope, devastated because of Steve’s recent unemployment, hurting at two ends of my body, I finally interrupted and said, “Mother, I have troubles too.”
“You?” she whined before I could even tell her my medical problems. “Why, you have the best furniture of anyone on the block!” With that, she flounced off.
So, when Steve got a new job (a couple of days later) that began as an insurance salesman for Allstate at the Northtown Mall in north Spokane and quickly became a district manager trainee, eligible for reassignment to another city when the training ended, I rejoiced. I was ready to move. (I knew my parents were not financially able to follow us—the company would pay all our moving expenses—not those of any one else.)
Our home sold, and we bought a new place in Tacoma.
When push came to shove, I knew I’d miss my friends like crazy. But . . .
Just before we were scheduled to leave, the neighborhood ladies had a going-away party for me. That night, the truth came out.
“You know, Darlene,” one said, “when you first moved in—with your toddler and Dodo—we all thought Dodo was Steve’s daughter by a first marriage. (Steve had always looked very mature—one of the reasons I was attracted to him.) All of us were shocked when we found she was his sister.”
Everyone had a big laugh over that.
As the movers packed the final boxes, the boss said, “I really feel sorry for you. Moving from a beautiful house like this—from such a great neighborhood.”
I must admit, I shed a few tears as we left.
It had been a truly wonderful seven years.
Chapter 4
“You’re moving where?” people asked.
“It’s kind of hard to say,” I’d answered. “Steve’s office is in Tacoma. And, technically, we’ll live in Tacoma. But . . .
“The (unincorporated) area is called Lakewood. We briefly stayed in the Lakewood Motor Inn the Friday night the girls and I arrived on the plane. We ate at The Lakewood Terrace. But our house is in a new housing project called Oakbrook. So—take your pick.”
The mover’s first word as he walked in our new home was, “Wow!” Followed quickly with, “Can’t believe it. This is even nicer than the one you left in Spokane.”
I must admit, in January 1966—the evening we first drove down Emerald Drive and I saw the glitzy, billboard-sized sign advertising Oakbrook—I thought, Wait a minute. We can’t afford this!
Sensing my distress, Steve said, “Bob just invited us for dinner. He’s a district manager. Just like me.”
“He must be independently wealthy,” I fussed.
After we feasted on lobster cooked by Bob’s wife Drew, we discovered he’d made an appointment the next morning for an Oakbrook real estate salesman to show us houses.
I worried What have we gotten ourselves into?
As happened before when I worried, Steve kissed me quiet.
Next morning, the first house we looked at was just up the street from Bob’s, a not-quite-finished split-level with a shake roof, brown cedar siding, trimmed in used brick. Beautiful!
I tried not to drool as the salesman took us down a long, tiled entrance hall into a huge living room with a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace. He continued to a separate dining room and a generous kitchen with a large eating area. Two sliding glass doors opened onto a back yard that looked like a forest. About ten feet from the house was a rock wall that went from one side of the lot to the other—excluding the stairs.
The upper level featured three bedrooms and two baths. Down six steps was a big family room—with a corner fireplace, bathroom, laundry room, and an unfinished space—perfect for a fourth bedroom/den/sewing room—that only requiring paneling and flooring.
“And a real plus,” the salesman said, “is that the buyer can choose the paint colors for all the walls, plus the flooring in the kitchen, bathrooms, and lower level. The bedrooms, living room, and dining room will be solid oak.”
I tried to stay cool—I loved to decorate. “How much?”
“Just $26,000.” (This was in 1966.)
“Too much money,” we said.
All that Saturday we looked at other homes in Oakbrook. We’d planned on driving up to Seattle for a special dinner after our house-shopping. By dusk, we were so tired we walked across the street to the nearest restaurant from our motel—The Lakewood Terrace. (It turned out to be a gift in disguise. The Terrace, as it’s called locally, turned out to be the best restaurant in the Tacoma/ Lakewood/University Place area.)
After church the next morning, we set out on our own. We found a couple of possible neighborhoods, called the phone numbers on the signs—they started at $10,000 more than the Oakbrook house we loved.
We tried a real estate agent in University Place. Prices were the same or more than the one on Emerald Drive we thought we couldn’t afford.
We agonized.
Steve quoted the regional manager’s house-buying advice: “Buy like you’ll live there forever. You’re on your way up, Steve. Don’t chintz.”
When we walked into the Oakbrook Real Estate office that Sunday afternoon at a quarter to five, our real estate guy was waiting for us.
If I could have moved my friend Laura next door, I would have called it heaven.
The afternoon we moved in, we had a visitor—Gus Krepela—complete with his wheelbarrow holding three azaleas he’d grown from seed.
“Just a little welcoming present,” Gus said. He proceeded to plant his prize-winning plants where they’d be the focal point of view from our kitchen.
“Come down and meet my wife Lynn when you get settled,” he said when he finished.
Gus, a big burly man who looked like a gardener with his rough clothes and dirt-under-the-nails hands was one of Steve’s agents. They lived just down the street on the end of Oakbrook Lane.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.