My Life So Far, Part 16

Because of Bertha’s neurosis, my family turned us out, not wanting to have their purses and wallets rifled for minor cash. I stood beside my wife in the troubles even when my sister tried to use blood ties to turn me against her. Bertha had a problem and until she was willing to accept it, there was no way to help her. We lived with a Mormon family who were friends of Bertha’s family for three weeks, until Bert found a subsidized apartment in Grand Prairie, Texas that we could afford.

I got a job working security for Jim Bearden and Associates out of Arlington, Texas. Most of the work entailed guarding hospitals and high-rise apartments. One job we had, that I was assigned to cover, was to guard a parking lot for a restaurant that had a bar next door. The bar patrons would fill up the restaurant parking lot so the diners had no place to park. I would stand outside and direct people to put their cars in the bar’s lot until the restaurant closed and their parking lot opened to non-restaurant cars.

On the same nights I worked the restaurant parking lot, I also guarded the parking garage of a high-rise with a broken garage door. That job started exactly one hour after the restaurant job ended. I had to use the time in some way, and I didn’t drink. So on one occasion in mid May, I decided to go home and kiss my wife. When I got there, thinking I would give Bertha a pleasant surprise, I found her not at home. I don’t expect my wife to give up any personal life for me. So I didn’t feel any wrong was done by her, but I was disappointed that I could not share a kiss before I returned to the high-rise for my second shift of the night.

The next Wednesday morning, May 16, 1984, I met my neighbor, Gary Don Shepherd, outside. Gary said he and his buddies met every Wednesday night from 10:30 PM to 12:30 AM at the doughnut shop just off the freeway entrance. I explained that I had to be to work in Farmers Branch, Texas before 11:30 PM on Wednesday nights, and I felt it would be rude for me to show up for only twenty minutes and leave. So I begged out of it. Besides, those few minutes on an evening were the only time I could spend with my wife and child. I valued that time with them.

Around this time my mother-in-law had begun a renewed effort to convince my wife to take the baby and leave me. Whenever my wife called home, it was the same refrain. When we had saved enough to rent a moving truck and bring our furniture and household appliances to Grand Prairie on the weekend of May 26-27, my mother-in-law saw this as the opportunity to split us apart. Since I had to work that weekend, Bertha would be going alone. But I had unwavering faith in Bertha and her love. The one thing Bertha craved in life was the only thing she could never have, the approval of her mother.

To be continued….

Ol’ Fuzzy is not employable and was denied for disability benefits. The only thing I have is the blogs. But I don’t qualify for ads on the blogs until there is enough traffic on the blogs to interest advertisers (20,000 hits per month). If you like the scribbles I post, please help me keep it going. You can leave me a gratuity by dropping a buck or two in Ol' Fuzzy's Tip Jar. This is a PayPal account I opened on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.

My Life So Far, Part 15

Because of the time I spent in Galveston with my wife giving birth to Deborah, I couldn’t make my rent for October, 1983. Bertha and I lost the house we were renting in Beaumont, Texas in January. So we packed all our things in a borrowed truck and moved into her brother’s house next door to their mother in Houston. This gave me more employment options.

I got a job grinding castings at Bethlehem Steel’s Houston facility, which served the oil industry. This is the same work my father did in the auto industry in Michigan, and I felt closer to my dad every time I went to work. But the rest of the crew were immigrants and I didn’t speak Spanish. The foreman’s English was minimal and only the manager could give me detailed instructions. I am a self-starter when I understand the job, and I did good work by myself. But I was unaware that OSHA was hard on the local shop, and I was moving 400 to 1,500 pound castings by myself. At college I dead-lifted 1,500 pounds for official score. I was comfortable with the weight, but OSHA was not. So after only three weeks I was fired for violating OSHA regulations about lifting heavy weights in the workplace.

After the foundry debacle, I got my chauffeurs’ endorsement on my driver’s license and started driving for Yellow Cab. The best hours for work were from two in the afternoon to two in the morning, and on my worst day in 1984 I brought in over a hundred dollars. After the lease on the car and gas money I would have more than forty dollars left for an eight hour shift. Naturally I worked the extra four hours to improve our finances.

In February my mother-in-law came to me to propose taking our five month old daughter and my wife to visit her East coast relatives. I saw nothing wrong with the idea as presented to me, so I gave my approval. That was my biggest mistake. One should never take a proposal by that woman or any of her offspring at face value.

The first stop on their trip took my wife and child to visit my wife’s grandmother and namesake in Florida. The lady was a wonderful person and I am glad she got to meet my child so early in Deborah’s life. Then my mother-in-law took them to Maryland, where she dumped them at her brother’s house, my wife’s uncle, with instructions to not allow them to leave unless I paid a ransom and bought them an airplane ticket. Then my mother-in-law took a flight to Pakistan where she had men whom she was bilking for money.

When my wife talked with her mother on the telephone, she was told the my mother-in-law could not return because the airport was closed. For most of the month of February we gave her a chance, but it was only a ploy to tear apart my marriage. I called the Pakistani consulate in Houston to ask if there were any problems in the airport in Karachi. The answer was no, the airport had been open for international flights the whole time.

I value my wife and child far more than I value mere money. So I drew out our entire savings, put it in an overnight envelope and mailed it to my wife as certified mail. Bertha paid off her uncle, bought a plane ticket, and returned to Houston that next night. Shortly after dawn, I picked them up from the airport and we packed what would fit in our car, put the rest of our things in storage, and fled to my family in the Dallas area.

Suddenly the Karachi airport opened to let my mother-in-law fly back. But by the time she got to Houston, we were gone. Strike two.

To be continued….

Ol’ Fuzzy is not employable and was denied for disability benefits. The only thing I have is the blogs. But I don’t qualify for ads on the blogs until there is enough traffic on the blogs to interest advertisers (20,000 hits per month). If you like the scribbles I post, please help me keep it going. You can leave me a gratuity by dropping a buck or two in Ol' Fuzzy's Tip Jar. This is a PayPal account I opened on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.