SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
Finally assigned quarters on the base (Loring AFB), we began the process of arranging our lives to this new place. We lived in a two-story row house (18 “houses” or apartments, within each row – directly across from another set of row houses), and ours had been added on – giving us a half-bath and a laundry room downstairs, right off the kitchen. We considered ourselves fortunate for that addition – the houses on either side of us did not have the add-on, and the only bathroom was upstairs.
The base housing was not in very good repair – especially on the outside, and was scheduled for refurbishment the summer we arrived. Here are some before and after pictures.
The military had contracted with a Canadian company to do the work. Nothing wrong with that – except they were on Atlantic time, and arrived about 6:00 a.m. local time. We kept hearing stories about people asleep in their upstairs apartment, awakened to find Canadian faces looking in their windows! We made sure we had the windows covered.
Of course, just covering the windows didn’t help with the sound. They were removing the old siding in preparation for new siding. It looked really nice when they were done, but BOY! was it loud in the mean time!
Since we had only been able to ship 2,000 pounds to Germany, we had left a lot of our household goods at my mother’s house in New Mexico. Now was the time to collect everything that was ours, and start using it all. So we had to find a place for all the china, crystal and sterling we had been given as wedding presents. The apartment was partially furnished, so we only had to purchase a minimum of furniture. We were furnished a dining room table and chairs, sideboard and two beds. Fred built a “hutch” for the sideboard, and we stored the crystal there.
We purchased a sofa (110″ long) in electric blue, with a matching high-back swivel rocker. We also purchased a 12′ X 15′ rug to go in the living room. It was such fun arranging all that stuff.
Fred’s parents and an aunt and uncle arrived the middle of October, hoping to see all the gorgeous fall colors – but they were about a month too late. Fall hits in early September in northern Maine. But we had a nice visit with them, anyway, taking them to our favorite restaurant in Canada, York’s. York’s had a set menu – only five items. But they had corn fritters the size of a baseball, served with real maple syrup – as many as you wanted to eat. You could have one serving of any of the five entrees, and if you were still hungry, you could have a half-order of anything except the steak. I really learned to love lobster there! And what was neat was that they split the lobster in half, and all you had to do was pick out the meat! No cracking there! Unfortunately, they closed down mid-October and didn’t open again until Mother’s Day. The roads were just too impassable, so they had no customers.
~~~~~~~~~~To be continued~~~~~~~~~~~
Old Things R New 