I was back at work early Tuesday morning after a whirlwind  honeymoon in New Orleans. Since we had only one car, an ancient Dodge that had once belonged to Mike’s grandmother, he dropped me off at the school each morning still urging me to take a driving test soon. I managed to work even as my mind was more focused on getting our apartment set up to be more livable. For much of the week I spent my evenings hanging pictures, arranging the bits of furniture that we had accumulated and organizing the kitchen and linen closet. 

Mike and I had purchased a sofa for under a hundred dollars at FedMart, one of the early versions of a big box discount store. It was a burnt orange color which was one of the popular hues of the day along with avocado green and gold. Many gift items for my kitchen echoed that trend, dating them as artifacts from the sixties to this very day. 

Mike’s mother had bought us a rocking chair which added extra seating to our living room. Alan and Susan gave us their old formica topped table with metal chairs for our dining nook. Mike brought the furniture from his bedroom that included a student desk, a double bed and a dresser. His parents also gave him an old television that sometimes behaved and sometimes had a tendency to flip and roll or become fuzzy. It worked just well enough to suit our needs. In our thinking we had exactly what we required to be comfortable. Best of all it was the first time that I had lived in a place with central air conditioning. In the humid heat of Houston, Texas that was a big win for a girl who had always slept with the windows open and the attic fan attempting to pull enough air inside to create a breeze.

We soon learned that our strict budget often became stressed when emergencies arose. There were times when our dinner consisted of boiled cabbage with canned pineapple for dessert. We were young enough to laugh at our folly and simply carry on until the monthly checks for our work arrived. Mama knowingly had a tendency to present us with a bag of groceries whenever we came to visit. Mike’s mom sometimes gave us packages of meat from the stash that she stored in her freezer or slipped a twenty dollar bill into one of Mike’s pockets. We timed our visits around meal times more often than not. Even Alan and Susan came to our rescue with invitations to Saturday feasts of Susan’s incredible cooking. 

Our sacrifices felt minimal to me. My mother had taught me to have gratitude for having a roof over my head, a warm bed in which to sleep safely at night, and a loving family by my side. As long as we made it from one day to the next and kept moving toward our goals together I was happy. In fact I enjoyed the challenge of that first year of wedded bliss. I suppose that those will always remain some of the happiest of my days.  

I finally screwed up enough courage to take the driver’s test. I had turned twenty years old and felt that I was long overdue in that regard. My first attempt went magnificently until I hit the orange cones while attempting to parallel park. The officer shook his head and bluntly announced that I would have to come back another day to try again. 

At first I felt totally defeated, but I’ve always had a stubborn determination in the face of challenges, so not long thereafter I was jumping through the hoops of the exam again. I froze as I approached the final leg of the test which was parallel parking. Mike had told me that the important thing was not to hit the cones, so when I realized that I was about to fail again I abruptly stopped and announced that I would probably have to practice some more because I felt incapable of parking properly. The kind officer asked me how old I was and shook his head when I told him I was twenty and that I had failed the test before. He sat quietly for a moment and then asked how often I might need to park a car between two other vehicles on the street. When I acknowledged that such a thing would rarely if ever happen he announced that he was going to give me a passing mark with the proviso  that I never try to parallel park unless I was certain I would not damage another car. To this day I have never attempted to park in such a situation. 

Mike was able to vote in the presidential election that year, but I was still shy of being twenty one and the voting age had not yet been lowered. Richard Nixon handily defeated Hubert Humphrey who had received the nomination of the Democratic party almost by default after the death of Robert Kennedy. Neither Mike nor I were fans of Nixon but his election had appeared to be inevitable so we were not surprised by his victory. The Vietnam War was very much on our minds, dominating the worries that we had. The mood in the country was tense and uncertain after a year defined by upheaval. Meanwhile Mike and I were happy inside a bubble of our own making as we charted our future together. 

In December we attended the wedding of our friends Linda and Bill. It was a beautiful ceremony just as I knew it would be. Bill was still in the army so the two of them were soon on their way to Germany where they would enjoy an adventurous beginning to their own love story. It seemed that so many of us Boomers were rapidly becoming adults and facing challenges not unlike those our parents had endured. Somehow we all rose to the occasion. 

When Christmas came that year we struggled to purchase gifts for our family members and each other. We found a small “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree that we decorated with makeshift ornaments and a single string of lights. Our budget was so tight that we literally debated whether or not to purchase a manger scene for five dollars. In the end we took a leap of faith and invested in the creche that we have continued to place under our holiday trees over the years. It remains a precious reminder of the joy and love that we found together.