The College Years June 8, 1970 Thru May 27, 1973
“The Angels Listened In” by The Crest
This is how I felt as we began our life together. Thank You Angels!!!!
An Index to the College Years
Our First Summer
Returning To College
1971
1972
January – May 1973
The College Year write-up will begin right after the pictures of the first house we rented.
Pictures of the First House We Rented
109 South Tennessee Blvd Murfreesboro, Tennessee
The Dining Room and the Kitchen (they did not get much use)
The Bedroom and Living Room
Our First Summer
The college years begin on June 8th, 1970, and go through May 27th, 1973. June 8th, 1970, was a Monday and I went back to work at the grocery store (Copper-Martin). Connie and I had shopped over the weekend buying our first groceries together. I remember we bought everything we needed to stock the house and it was under $20. I still have the receipt somewhere and am looking for it. That Monday was my first day back after our honeymoon and luckily, they had given me the 8 AM – 5 PM shift. I am sure I went home for lunch that day but do not remember anything about it. The First Cooked Meal – was that evening. I arrived home and Connie had cooked us our first meal together. I do not remember the vegetables we had but for some reason, I think it was potatoes and beans, then she went to get the chicken out of the oven but guess what she had forgotten to turn the oven on, so it was still cold and raw. Anyway, we ate the vegetables and then later that night we had the chicken. That was the first of many laughs Connie and I would have about her cooking. While I do not remember much about the first weeks together, I will not forget the first meal she prepared for me. Thank you, Connie, for all the happy memories.
One of the first things we did that week was open joint checking and saving accounts at the local bank. Counting the money, she had saved and the money we had gotten at the wedding we had $365.00. I always teased Connie that I married her for a dollar a day that first year.
The summer was filled with happiness. getting to know each other, and learning each other’s little quirks. We visited my parents probably a little more than we should have that summer, but we always came home with some good food. It probably was not fair to Connie, since she was so far from home and we probably visited my parents every other weekend.
For those of you who have known us for a long time, you know that Connie did not drive when we first got married. So, I spent the summer teaching her how to drive. I am enclosing the taking of her driver test story in the funnies for those of you who would like to read about it. I think it was one of our funniest stories. I remembered the first time she got behind the wheel which was a Sunday in the parking lot of a shopping center and very few cars were there. Connie kept saying there was not enough room to turn around, now the parking lot probably had room for 1000 cars, but she did not think it was big enough to turn a little Volkswagen around. We spent a lot of evenings during those early months teaching her to drive and I have so many happy memories of it. While it probably not as much fun during that time, it brings back happy memories now. I distinctly remember a little hill at a red light on our way home from the grocery store, where she would struggle with the clutch in not letting the car roll back down the hill. It is funny when I think back on it now.
There were the familiar stores in the shopping center that became places we visited very often. There was a store called Roses which was a smaller, much smaller version of Target and Wal-Mart. The main thing I remember about Roses was during the first week we were married, Connie went and bought two laundry baskets. She was like a kid at Christmas with those laundry baskets in that she was so happy. I learned early on that Connie, could find happiness in the smallest things, she was very low maintenance that way. Never did how much something cost mean anything to her, it was always about the little things in life that brought her joy. They had a little grill in Roses and sometimes, we would eat there especially when she would meet me during my lunch hour. One of the things we would do every now and then was to pop a balloon at the snack bar. Inside the balloon was a small piece of paper that told you how much you would pay for a banana split, it ran from a penny to forty-nine cents. That the right the highest cost of a banana split in 1970 was forty-nine cents. There was a Bonanza restaurant at the end of the shopping center and we ate there quite a bit. Back then we could get a steak and a baked potato for around a $1. Then there was the laundromat next door to the grocery store which I wrote about in the funnies. If you have not read that please go check it out.
In late July, she interviewed for a teaching job in my hometown of Shelbyville and was offered a job teaching first grade but because of her driving test adventures, she had to turn it down. She took the driving test in early August and you can read all about it in ‘The Funnies”
This takes us through our first summer. Thank you, Connie, for those precious memories of us starting our life together.
Returning To College
The college semester begins in August and I signed up for 16 hours. Luckily, I could get all my classes in before 11:30 am and then be at work at noon. Luckily, the store scheduled me from 12 to 9 so I could go to class. Since I worked Saturdays also, I had one day during the week off. Connie and I were settling into the house and developing a routine around me going to school and working. I usually drove the car to classes and then went home and she drove me to work. I already had one year under my belt as I went the 1964-65 semester before going into the Air Force. I was repeating my last calculus course as I had received a C in it and since I was a math major I knew that was not good.
I always teased Connie, that I was going to wear a tie to class and she was so concerned about everyone making fun of me. I wasn’t but it was fun to tease her and play the oddball. Oh, I know what some of you are thinking, I was not playing. Anyway, my first day of classes and my first class was the calculus course I was repeating. I was standing outside the room talking to some other students and kept seeing this young kid standing in the front of the room. I remember saying who does he think he is. I soon found out he was our teacher and had his doctorate. He was a year younger than I was. I head several more classes with him over the next three years.
In September Connie, went back to see her mother and she was supposed to stay a week but she must have missed me because she came home after only three days. One of her friends came to visit in late September and I remember Connie hit a dog with the car. It was not her fault, but she was torn up over it for several weeks. I do not recall her ever hittimg anything else. I wish she was here because I thought one of my friends from the service also came that fall but I remember her telling me she did not remember that. This story would be so much better with her input.
The rest of the year was fairly normal as I settled into a routine, going to class every day till about 11:00 and then grabbing a quick bite before I went to work. The only exception was on the days I had my English courses, I would stay till a little after 11. The professor shopped at the grocery store where I was working, and I think he must have had a soft spot for me. He would let me stay an extra 15 minutes after the class was over, so I could check my writing. Luckily that still gave me time to get to work ok. I worked till 9 with one day off during the week and then I had Sundays off. Connie in the meantime was helping me by keeping me organized and assisting me with my English assignments. I do not think I could have made it through the English courses without her. (Thank you, Connie).
During November, Connie decided it would be better for us if we did not rent the house anymore but that we move to an apartment. The house was old and draftee, so the heating and air-conditioning bills were a little more than we thought we should be paying. Anyway, as I continued to work, Connie started looking for a new place to move to and she found it. She found some new apartments a little farther from the campus. We were just off the campus and the new apartment was about 2 miles from the campus. The apartments she found were called Hidden Acres, they had a swimming pool and a basketball court. We moved into apartment 2K which was small with just a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bath but the good thing was they were only $90 and included utilities. As you can guess it was on the second floor. That was $10 cheaper than we were paying for the house we rented plus we did not have to pay any utilities. We could not move until mid-January, so we had some things to get done.
Thanksgiving was approaching and back then, there was nothing open on Thanksgiving Day. We spent it with my parents. My mother was a great cook and we had plenty of leftovers to take home with us. In fact, a lot of times we went to my parents on Sunday just to get some food to bring back.
Now we have a problem. We had to start thinking about furniture for the apartment. The house we had rented was furnished so we had no furniture period. There was a “Railroad Salvage” store in my hometown of Shelbyville, so one weekday when I did not have to work we took off to see what we could find, and did we find something. We found a kitchen table, with four chairs, for the living room we found a couch, a chair, a coffee table two end tables, and two lamps. For the bedroom we got a bed including the box springs and mattress, also we got a chest drawer and a bureau. It was a very nice set. Even for 1970, we feel we got a steal, it was only $300.00. We felt we had hit the jackpot. Anyway, the furniture turned out to be long-lasting. The kitchen table lasted us into the late seventies, while the living room furniture lasted until the eighties, but we kept the bedroom furniture in the extra bedroom until the beginning of the new century.
I remember very little about our first Christmas. I do know we spent Christmas Eve at home by ourselves and then went to spend Christmas Day with my parents. I did not know it at the time, but it would be the last Christmas I would spend with my father. I do remember New Year’s Eve though. Connie and I decided to have a New Year’s Eve party and invite several people that I worked with at the grocery store. I remember it being a nice evening as we spent a lot of time on the front porch enjoying everyone’s company and I think we all drank too much.
That my friends will close out 1970, the year that we started what would be a wonderful happy life together. (I love you, Connie)
1971
The year 1971 started well, but I did not know what a shock January would bring. My grades were in and I did pretty well carrying a 3 + grade point and even getting a C in my English course. I increased my grade in calculus from a C to a B after that my math grades greatly improved to mostly A’s. Our rental agreement for the house we were renting was up at the end of January and we were looking forward to moving to the new apartment. Toward the end of January, my father went into the hospital. I did not think it was anything serious and my mother and the doctors did not indicate it was serious either. I went to visit him in the hospital on Thursday, January 21st and he seemed to be doing good. I did not realize that would be the last time I saw him.
Something strange happened in the early morning hours of January 25th, as I awoke about 3 in the morning and I felt my father reaching out to me. I know this sounds strange, but this is always the way I have remembered it. It was like my father was there saying goodbye. I felt his presence and then told myself I was crazy and went back to sleep. Around 4:45 AM the phone rang and back then you only had one phone in the house, but I knew as soon as it rang that my father had passed. That presence that I felted was him saying goodbye. I dragged myself out of bed and when I got to the phone it was my mother telling me that my father was gone. I got Connie up and we got dressed and went over to my mother’s, we were there before 7 that morning. It was so had on my mother and I took charge of everything as my brother was still in the army in Virginia Beach.
I talked to my mother about what she wanted and by noon Connie and I were at the funeral home making all the arrangements. My father had very little insurance, so I was left with trying to make everything work and figuring out how to pay for it. The funeral was scheduled for Thursday and I contacted the pastor at the church, but I had never met him. I had left Tennessee in 1966 and only returned at the beginning of 1970. I also was attending the catholic church with Connie at the time and had never gone back to the Baptist church that I was raised in. The rest of the week was a whirlwind of getting things together for the funeral. We had selected the casket and a suit for my father on Monday afternoon and paid for a burial site. Unfortunately, without thinking I only purchased one and when I told my mother she was upset so I went and purchased the site next to him. I just was not thinking but also it was difficult financially for us to do. Even though the extra funeral plot was only $60 that was a lot of money for us back then and after paying all the other costs we had to really stretch to be able to buy it. My father had a wooden picture frame made from a cherry tree back in the early 1800s and he always thought it was worth something. My mother gave it to us in the hopes that we could raise some money from it. We took it to some antique dealers and one said it was valuable, but he was not willing to pay for it because he could get some new ones cheap, and with a hammer and some dirt and other techniques he could make them look old and make a lot more profit from it than paying us for the real thing. I still have that frame with a picture of me and my father in it. Sometimes I still wonder if it is really worth anything.
I guess I am going to take a minute to reflect here. I never knew how hard it was for my mother to lose my father until I lost Connie. Yes, I tried to be supportive but never knew the pain she was in. In fact, there were a couple of times it may have caused some problems between Connie and me. Nothing serious just little disagreements. Since I was working and going to school full time, we did not have much time alone and then I would want to go to my mother on Sundays and she would prefer to do something else. There may have been times when I went just to support my mother and I should have been there supporting her. It was never a mean argument, she just expressed that she could use some time also. She never refused to go and support me, but she did explain how she felt. Her mother had also lost her father and she left as soon as she graduated. So, I think those visits may have caused her to feel bad that she was not there supporting her mother. But you know in all those visits, I never comprehended what my mother and even Connie’s mother were going through until I lost Connie. I wish I knew then what I know now and it is not about the visits, especially if you are just visiting and not providing the support they need. Luckily for my mother, my grandmother moved in and I think that helped relieve some of the loneliness she felt, At least that is what I try to tell myself.
At the beginning of February, we got into the apartment. It was apartment 2k at Hidden Acres apartments. We were on the second floor and the door opened to an open area where there were 3 other apartments. There was one apartment on our right and two across from us. We got to know our neighbors, but I can only remember one couple who were catty-corner to us. They were Susan and Buddy Ott. I am not sure what happened to them. I remember the couple on our right but cannot remember their name. We ended up going out with this other couple about once a month on Saturday night after I got off from work. Now on Saturday, I had a noon to 9 shifts, so I would usually be home by about 9:30 but sometimes it was 10. Connie and I would go with this other couple to Nashville about 30 minutes away to a new place called Red Lobster. I remember one time it was after 11 pm when we ordered, and I had ordered a steak and they dropped it on the floor as they were bringing it to my table. While Connie and the otter couple ate their dinner, I also waited for them to bring me another steak. Anyway, I remember it was after midnight before we left the place.
Connie joined a fitness place with the wife of one of the guys that I worked with. I am not sure how long they went but it was for several months. In the spring we bought bicycles and began riding them. I am not sure what happened to them, but I think we sold them after I graduated and before we moved.
I was going to talk about a movie we went to that spring but after doing some research, I think we must have gone to see it in the fall of 1970. The movie was “Patton” and we really enjoyed it. Murfreesboro had a small theater underneath some store in a shopping center. I remember it being very small and probably only seated about a hundred people. That is the only movie I even remember us going to at that theater. Most of the time we went to the drive-in or the theater downtown. Back then most of the theaters in the small towns were located in the downtown area.
It was springtime and we were having problems with our Volkswagen, remember I had had problems with it before I left for the wedding, so we decided to trade it and get another one. I had paid $500 back in December of 1969 when I bought the first one but ended up paying more for this one, That was a first for Connie and me, trading cars and it was not a great experience back in those days dealing with used car salesman’s. The spring continued, and we were really enjoying the apartment, it was very new, and we had all new furniture. What a wonderful time we were having as we were still getting to know each other.
I was struggling with my last required class in English (Poetry), maybe part of the reason was that I seemed to slip up and pronounce it poultry. The teacher was a middle-aged man and shopped at the store where I worked. I was hoping there would be some way I could pull a C out of the class but unfortunately, that was not to be. I ended up with a D which turned out to be my only grade below a B during my college years. I thought about repeating the course for a higher grade, but Connie was the smart one and said Sparkie, even if you repeat it there is only a slim chance that you will do better, and you could fail the next time. So, I stayed with the D as Connie, knew my weakness in English better than anyone. She had worked with me during the whole semester, so I trusted her judgment and moved on. In retrospect listening to Connie was always a good idea as I could have ended up having to retake that English (Poetry) multiple times to get back to a D. I usually listened to her and most of the time she turned out to be correct. She loved to hear me say, “I was wrong” and she would say what did you say, and I would repeat it.
Finally, the second semester had ended, and we decided that I should attend the two-summer session taking a course each session to get some of the electives out of the way.
Before the summer sessions began, Connie and I took a trip back to visit her mother, sister, and brother. It was in June that we decided to go. Unfortunately, I was unable to get off on a Saturday, but I was able to get the early shift and get off at 5 PM. It was about a 15-hour trip. We took off and made it into Virginia before stopping for the night. It was after midnight when we stopped at some small motel in the middle of nowhere. We got up and left about 8 the next morning and were really surprised where we had stayed. I do not think we would have ever stayed there if we had seen it in the light and were thankful we made it out of there ok. We made it to her sister late Sunday afternoon. I really do not remember much else about the trip and what we did, but I am sure we had a good time.
Normally, I had to work until 9 PM on Saturday nights but on those occasions when I got off earlier we would go to the Dusk to Dawn drive-in-movie. They would usually show 4 or 5 movies that night and I would be over around 3 or 4 am. There were many a night that I fell asleep and Connie would wake me up when it was time to go. As I mentioned earlier if I got off at 9 PM sometimes we would go into Nashville to visit a new restaurant called Red Lobster with our neighbors. While I can not recall their names, I can recall the neighbors that lived catty-corner across from us. They were Susan and Buddy Ott.
One of the movies we saw that summer came out in 1968, and it was called “Night of the Living Dead”. It was the scariest movie that I ever saw. After watching that movie, I also had the worst nightmare, that I have ever had. I remember Connie, waking me up and that was in a cold sweat, and that the only time I ever remember her waking me up from a nightmare. In the nightmare, I was being attacked by our parakeet “Petey”. Now I am not sure what that movie had to do with that nightmare, but I do recall them both happening the same night. We would see many dusks to dawn drive-in movies over the summer at least Connie would as I think I slept through a lot of them.
For summer school that year I took a couple of electives, one was World History and I cannot remember what the other one was, but they were courses I enjoyed and were fun to take. I wish Connie was here because that would be something that she would remember. In the spring of 1971, Connie bought me something that we kept until 2005 and that was a desk. I remember coming home from work and sitting at that desk doing my homework. What I am finding hard in writing this is sharing these memories and not being able to ask Connie what hers were.
Connie got a job that summer and it was on the outskirts of Nashville. It was not too far to drive and there were other people she could carpool with. It was for an airline, not one of the major ones but one that charter airlines for trips to Vegas, etc. Unfortunately, the job only lasted a few weeks. The guy that hired Connie had hired about ten to fifteen new people. They fired him and let all the new people he had hired go.
Things were going pretty well as Connie and I had settled into a routine. We were able to make it on my salary from the grocery store and the check I got from the GI Bill for going to college. It was still tough though as I remember one Thursday night we were having trouble with our Volkswagen and we took it in after I got off work. We went next door to a “Burger Chef” which was a fast-food burger chain back then. We spent fifteen cents each for a couple of burgers and waited to see what was wrong with the car. We were very nervous because we only had about fifteen dollars until payday. Thank goodness payday was on Friday. It was something very minor and did not cost much.
The semester began, and I had made some friends among the other math majors and a couple of them live in the student apartments on campus. Connie and I got together with them a couple of times. Now that I had fulfilled all my English requirements school was going well and I was enjoying it. Marriage life was so good for Connie and me.
Thanksgiving would be the first my mother would spend without my Dad, so we decided that we would go over there. Was there any choice as we all know about Connie’s cooking? Looking back on it now, I know I did not realize how hard and painful it was for my mother, if I only knew then what I know now, I could have provided her with better support. Thanksgiving was hard without my father, but I made it through ok.
It was almost Christmas time, and Connie and I ended up going to my mother’s again on Christmas day for dinner. I do not remember much about that Christmas. On New Year’s Eve, I had to work late but we ended up not doing much on our second New Year’s together. I remember us going out at about eleven pm with our neighbors Susan and Buddy Ott to a place called Shoney’s the home of the Big Boy hamburger.
1972 – Before I begin about our adventures in 1972, I remembered something we did on Christmas night in 1971. That night we went to the downtown theater in Murfreesboro to see a movie. We went around 7 or 8 pm to see the movie “Willard”. For those of you who have never seen it about an isolated young man who trains rats to exact revenge on his tormentors. I am not sure why we went to see it, as I know Connie, sometimes like those kinds of movies but it could have been because I went to school for 10 years with the co-star Sondra Locke. At the time we thought she would have a good film career because she had been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Actress category a couple of years before.
1972
They’re not a whole lot I remember about the early part of ’72. Connie and I were doing pretty well as we approached the second year of our marriage. On Saturday nights we usually took a trip to Red Lobster to eat once a month or during the warmer months, we did the all-night movies at the drive-in. I had to look at this next piece of information up on the internet and I am glad I found it. I know Connie would have remembered this but not me. This is one of the other things we did on Saturday nights One of the local stations in Nashville aired a program on Saturday nights at 10:30 called “Creature Feature” and it was hosted by Sir Cecil Creape. I remember he came to the shopping center in Murfreesboro one Friday night and guess who was right there to see him? Yep, Connie, that’s who. I know I fell asleep many a Saturday night watching them with Connie and she would wake me up when they were over to go to bed.
During the spring semester, the university encouraged us to start going on interviews even though we were still a year away from graduation. I took several interviews, that year. The main one I remember was with Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Most of them were with schools as my minor was secondary education. I learned about this company EDS when I was getting out of the service.
As I mentioned when I wrote about the year 1971 we were having problems with our Volkswagen, so I decided to trade it in. Back in the early ’70s dealing with car salesman was not always a pleasant experience. Connie and I had decided on a new Ford Maverick and picked out a blue one. After all the negotiating, I walked away from the deal thinking it was still more than I wanted to pay. Connie and I drove back from Nashville to Murfreesboro only to walk into the apartment and turn to Connie and say I am going to do the deal. Connie was a little frustrated with me and my indecision. I called the salesman and back into Nashville we drove, and I took the original deal. At the time I was worried because the new car payment was a little over $70 and that was a lot of money then. But we left that beautiful afternoon in mid-May with a brand new pretty blue Ford Maverick the first new car that Connie and I would buy together.
The start of the summer was very hard on Connie and me, as we found out Connie’s sister and husband were separating. Connie and I had found her a duplex in Murfreesboro only a few miles from us, so we began our trip to visit her mother knowing we would be helping her sister move from New Jersey to Tennessee. I had met Connie through her sister’s husband (Danny) in Germany and we were good friends, but I knew Connie needed to be there for her sister. After, the long drive north in the new Maverick we spent some time with Connie’s mother and enjoyed a few days with her. But we did not stay the full week as we had to load a U-Haul filled with her sister’s stuff, including most of the furniture. Her husband helped us load the U-Haul and if I remember correctly we left on Wednesday morning to move her sister to Tennessee. Now I was driving the U-Haul, Connie was driving our new Maverick, and her sister was driving her car.
At this time her sister had two young kids, Larry the oldest was a few months short of being two, and his sister Nancy was just a few weeks short of being one. This was 1972 and car seats were not mandatory, and most people did not have them at this time. Some of the time Larry rode with Connie. The driving of the U-Haul was hard because something was loose just behind the driver seat just above my head and it kept pounding and gave me a terrible headache. I hardly ever get headaches. There was no way I could get to it without unloading a large portion of the U-Haul. We made it a little over halfway through Virginia before we stopped for the night. We were all extremely tired, but we still had another half of the way to go.
Thursday, we got an early start, well as early as you can with two small kids and made it into Murfreesboro that evening. The next day Friday, I got some of the people I worked with at the store to come and help me unload the U-Haul. Some came before they went to work and some after they got off, but we were able to get everything unloaded that day. I returned the U-Haul and we helped her sister get set up that weekend.
I remember a few things about that summer. The scariest thing was the duplex on the other side of her had a gas explosion and one of the people was burned pretty bad. Luckily Connie’s sister and kids were not affected by it, but it scared them. We spent a lot of time stopping by to see them and show them around the town. I was glad to do it because Connie now had family here also. I can still picture myself holding the garden hose and Larry running through it and then turning it on Nancy who seemed to love it. Connie’s sister had the hardest time potty training Larry. I do not know if there ever was a kid so hard to potty train. Danny her husband came down a couple of times to visit and we were hopeful that they would be able to work it out.
By the end of the summer, we had all settled into a routine and seemed very happy. It was during that summer that Connie really helped me. The summer before I had taken a history course as my elective and that was easy for me because I enjoyed it. Now, this summer I was taking two courses, they both had to do with music. In one of them, I had to choose, a musician and write about them. I chose Richard Wagner, and in the other, I had to choose a musical instrument to write about and I chose the violin. Thank goodness for Connie that summer as I am not sure I could have pulled off those two papers without her. Just imagine having to edit and correct my work, now that is a job. Thank you so much, Connie.
There was nothing special about the fall, that I can remember. I was finishing up my final math course as the next semester would be half of it to do classes for education and the other half to do my student teaching.
Thanksgiving was something special, but I am going to put that story in the other section under “Stories – The Funnies — Thanksgiving (November 1972) — Connie’s First Time Preparing Thanksgiving Dinner”. It is something you will have to read as it was the first time Connie made Thanksgiving dinner. Maybe it should not have gone in funnies as it was not funny when it happened but the further we got away from it the more we could laugh about it.
During early December, we went way out in the country with another couple Vickie and Trent to cut our own Christmas tree. They lived on the campus in student housing for married couples. That was the first time Connie had ever been out to cut down a real Christmas tree. It was cold that day, but it was bearable, and I remember how good a time we had. Later, that month during Christmas break on a Wednesday evening after I got off from work around 5 we drove to Hendersonville Tennessee to have dinner with Vickie and Trent and Trent’s parent along with another couple that lived in student housing and was also from Hendersonville. It was about a 2-hour ride and we got home late. The dinner was wonderful, and we had a great time.
For Connie’s Christmas present that year, you’re going to have to go to “Stories – Others” to read The Christmas Surprise. While there are very few years that I can remember what I bought Connie for Christmas this was one of them.
Christmas was special that year as we got to celebrate it with Connie’s sister and husband and their children. I dressed up in a Santa Claus suit and hid in the attic. They then got the kid in a place so they could see me come down out of the attic, the only problem was that Nancy the youngest started crying like crazy and would not stop as it scared her. Danny had made a home movie of that been unfortunately the tape was destroyed when their house had some water damage years later.
As New Year’s approached things were improving for Connie’s sister as Danny had gotten a transfer to Knoxville, Tennessee which was about a 3-hour drive from Murfreesboro. At least he would be with his family on weekends. We were hoping for the best as we celebrated New Year’s Eve with them.
So that closed out 1972, as Connie and I were really into our planning for graduation the next May. We had sent a Christmas card to the recruiter from EDS that I had interviewed with back in the spring of this year. I never heard from him and you will find out why next year.
1973 – May 27, 1973
I will close out the College Years as I will update this section from January 1st until May 27th of that year.
The last semester of college started normally and was an easy semester for me. I had finished all my required courses to graduate with a degree in Math. I was going to spend the first half of the semester taking courses about teaching, such as a lesson planning, etc. and in the second part of the semester, I would be doing my student teaching to complete my minor in secondary education.
Talk about being lucky, since Connie was an elementary school major, she was a tremendous help to me during both halves of that semester. During the first part of the semester, she was a tremendous help as she knew a lot about the course I was taking.
Recruiters were visiting the campus, and I was so excited to see that the EDS recruiter was coming back again in March. I know he had not answered my Christmas card but still, I thought I had done a good job last year and he told me he wanted me to come back this year. I was also interviewing with other companies and several schools outside the state of Tennessee. I already had interviews lined up In Nashville with an Insurance Company, and with the grocery chain I was working for, plus an insurance company in Chattanooga TN.
The day arrived for me to visit again with the recruiter from EDS, the company I had wanted to interview with when I left the service, but they were only interviewing college graduates at that time. When I went in I was shocked, because it was not the guy I had interviewed with the previous year whom I thought was interested in talking to me again. As it turns out that person had quit the company, so I now had to convince the new recruiter that I deserved an interview. I must have done ok because he said I want to interview your wife, the company had just changed their policy about a year before because they usually flew you and your wife to Dallas where both people were interviewed. The new policy was that the recruiter was now responsible for interviewing the wife. So, we set up a meeting the next afternoon at the Holiday Inn where he was staying. Connie and I showed up at 2 PM for her interview and it must have lasted about an hour and a half. After the interview, he told me that he would set up a trip for me to come to Dallas for my interview. Connie did a great job and because of her, the process got to move forward. The main thing I remember Connie saying about the interview was he was trying to make sure she would be ok with the long hours that would be expected of me the first few years and to see how she felt about moving to different parts of the country, etc. Thank you, Connie, as always you outshined me. I needed to schedule all my other interviews before I went to Dallas. If they offered, you a job then you had to accept or decline right there. You were not allowed to think about it, they said they wanted people who could make decisions.
Knowing I would be expected to make that decision, Connie and I went about getting other interviews set up with all the people I wanted to interview with. That interview was set up for late April, so I went on the interview in Nashville but was not that impressed. They did not seem to care very much, they just gave me a voucher for lunch and pointed me in the direction of the cafeteria. I did take some kind of test, but they never said how I did, and they never made a job offer. I then interviewed with a couple of schools for teaching positions. I also went to Nashville to interview with the grocery chain I was working with to join their computer department.
I only had one company left to interview with before I went to Dallas and that was Provident Life and Accident in Chattanooga Tennessee. Connie and I went late one April evening as they put us up in a hotel for the evening. The next day, I interviewed and again took a test. I thought the interview went great as they must have thought so too as they offered me a job right then and I told them I wanted to interview with one more company before I made a decision. The next interview was going to be with EDS and I knew I had to wear a suit to it. Previously I just wore a nice pair of pants and a shirt and tie. I remember the day so well as it was a Wednesday or Thursday and I had the day off from work, so Connie and I went to a JC Penny’s store in one of the malls in Nashville in the afternoon after I got out of student teaching. EDS is a very conservative company, so I picked out a couple of really nice suits, blue, gray, brown and other colors. But Connie picked out a plaid suit. I told her that I did not think I could wear something like that, but she informed me that I was an ole fogie and that this suit was conservative. Well, I listen to her and wait until you hear what happened.
I had a good offer in hand from the company in Chattanooga, and two offers to teach school, one in South Carolina, and the other in Florida. Now in fairness, I was not enjoying my student teaching and would not be a good teacher. One of the female students tried to take advantage of me, she would ask to go to the bathroom and never return. No matter how I tried to discipline her nothing seemed to work. The hard part she was the daughter of my dentist and worked in his office after school.
So, it was now time to go to Dallas for my interview. I put on what Connie had told me was a very conservative suit and took an early flight from Nashville to Dallas. I arrived at about 10:00 AM for an 11:00 interview. I had two interviews, the first was with three members of the company that worked there and after that, they went and briefed the executive that was going to interview you. We finished up the first interview a little after noon and they then briefed the executive. That interview started at about 12;30 and went on till almost 6:30. He had me on a yoyo, one minute I would think he going to hire me and the next I would think there is no way I was going to get this job. Finally, he offered me a job but said I have never seen a suit like that and there is no way you can wear that at this company. Almost 45 years later, I still probably could not wear that suit to work. So much for what Connie thought was conservative. I accepted the job as it was $250 a month more than any of the other offers. Remember I had to give a yes or no answer right away. He then offered me two locations to pick from, Little Rock, Arkansas, or Indianapolis, Indiana. Thank goodness he told me I could talk it over with my wife, but I had to let him know by the end of business the next day. The company had made the flight arrangements and I was supposed to be on a 5:30 pm flight which I missed but lucky his secretary got me on a 7:30 flight back to Nashville. Thank goodness they had called my wife and told her I would miss the 5:30 flight. I called her from the airport and we were so excited. The office was only 5 minutes from Love Field, so I was there with about 45 minutes to spare. It was no contest when I asked her where she wanted to go it was Indianapolis. I called them the next day and told them where we would like to go and got a start date of June 1st.
That afternoon, I got a call from Computer Science Corporation (CSC) and they wanted to set up an interview. I had wanted to interview with them but declined as I had already given my word to EDS.
Now, I was all set with a job, so as I look back on my student teaching, I cannot thank Connie enough. While I taught, and then went to work afterward, Connie was such a tremendous help to me. I had to do two bulletin boards for the math classes, I was teaching, and it was her creativity and helping me get everything ready and then coming with me after school to decorate them to help me get a good grade. She was with me there every evening helping me with my lesson plans.
There were about two weeks before school was going to be out, and suddenly, I had a medical problem. Connie took me to a doctor on a Wednesday afternoon and they admitted me to the hospital that night. I had surgery done the next morning to repair an anal fistula. It was very painful, and the recovery was no fun either. Even though I missed the last two weeks of student teaching the lady I was being supervised by still gave me a B for the class. I was concerned that they might not let me graduate as I did not complete the whole time.
But they did and on May 12th, 1973 at 2:00 pm I attended the graduation ceremony with Connie, and my mother and afterward, we went out for a bite to eat.
I do not remember much about the last two weeks before we moved, except, that the doctor did not clear me to go back to work at the grocery store. We spent a lot of time preparing and thinking about our move. The moving company showed up on Friday, May 25th, to pack our things which did not take long at all. On Sunday night we slept on the floor because the moving company was coming Monday morning to pack up our things on a truck and take them to Indianapolis. At the time we did not know where to tell them to take them but as soon as we found a place we were to call them so hopefully, they would not have to put it in storage.
I want to finish my college years with these statements. I do not know if I would have returned to finish my college degree after I got out of the service. I think I would have but without Connie, I am not sure. She is the reason I went back because I wanted to provide her with a good life financially at that time. Now I realize there is more to a good life than being financially secure so much more. She was so instrumental in these early years, helping me with my classes and I do give her credit for some of my classes, sophomore English both semesters, my elective summer classes especially those around music and art, always being there to help me to encourage me to support me. For a lot of reasons too many to mention, part of that degree was hers, even though she already had one. For the wonderful job when EDS interviewed her before they would even consider letting my interview process go forward. Thank you, Connie, for making me the person that you did.
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