Denver-The First Three Months Of Marriage

When Eddie and I got married, we drove to Denver, Colorado where he was finishing up school in the Air Force before we were transferred to our new home base. We drove that TR3 little car without clothes through many states and then into Colorado. We rented a furnished apartment on Colorado Blvd. The building had six apartments. The old lady landlord lived on the top floor. She had her dead husband's ashes in a urn on the top of her stove. The apartment had a living room with a bed that folded up in the closet, hallway, small dining room, kitchen, one bathroom and a big back bedroom. 

The bed was awful - springs, one small top mattress. When you laid on the bed, you both rolled to the middle or you hung on to the sides to stay on your side. That is why the first thing happened was Eddie rolled to the middle and stuck his unshaven chin in my eye. I went to work and began to not be able to see very good and it really hurt. My eye wouldn't stop watering. They took me to the nurse on duty at the place I worked. He said my eye was cut all the way across and he bandaged up my eye and said I had to leave it on 3 or 4 days.  So I drove to the base to tell Eddie and he couldn't believe all the white bandages on my head. He thought I had been in a accident. Needless to say, He didn't know what he was in for, getting me used to being away from home.

The next thing that happened to me was I was not used to cooking on an old gas stove. One that you had to light the oven with a match. I didn't know about how necessary it was to light the oven right away when you turned on the gas. I walked across the kitchen to get the matches after I had turned on the gas. I came back to the oven, bent down with my head almost in the oven and lite the match. Bang, the oven blew up with a big ball of fire coming out of the oven and caught my hair on fire. I ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and saw my hair burning. I pounded on my hair and all that hair fell off in the sink, the hair on my arms was burning, my eyebrows. I ran out in the hall way with my blouse off yelling for help. The woman across the hall came running out and gave me some cream and said go back and get my blouse on.  The whole apartment smelled like burned hair. I laid down on the bed feeling like I had died. I wouldn't go back in the kitchen. The hell with supper. When Eddie came home, he wanted to know what in the world happened. I told him, and he made me get in a cold tub of water and soak. He cleaned up the kitchen. I looked really strange for awhile with my hair about a 1/4 inch back to the center of the top of my head. My eye brows gone, and the hair on my arm burned.

My next adventure was learning to cook in Denver. The water was so soft and the city was a mile high.  One time, I cooked dried beans for supper. I first put the beans on in a big pot, and after a while I came back in the kitchen and the beans were up the top of the pot, so I took out some of the beans and put them in another pot. Now I had two pots on the stove. Later, I came back in the kitchen and the beans in both pots were up to the top of the pot edge again, so I got yet another pot out, making three. I was running out of pots.  So after all was said and done I had four bowls of cooked beans in the ice box. When Eddie came home that night, he asked me what I did all day. I said look in the ice box and you tell me. Looks like you have been cooking beans all day. We both had a good laugh over that one.

One day in August, it started snowing. I had never seen snow, I ran to the bedroom window and said it is snowing, then I ran to the other end of the apartment and saw that it was snowing out that window too. I ran back to Eddie and told him it was snowing out that window too. Lets say, I was young and had never left Florida much. I had a lot of growing up to do. Eddie wouldn't go out and look at the snow, so I went out, made a snowball and came back and threw it in the bed under the covers on him. 

Eddie read a lot and didn't always pay me attention. So one Sunday after, he was reading the paper on the bed and I was painting my fingernails. So I decided to surprise him and I painted his toenails.  When he finally noticed what I had done, he learned to pay more attention. Sometimes just for fun, when he was taking a shower, I would pour a pitcher on ice water over the shower curtain to surprise him.

One day, I came home from the doctor and told Eddie we were going to have a baby.  The look on his face was priceless. The first thing he said was, 'Oh no, I am too young to be a father'. This can't be happening. I said well, it was happening and he better get use to it. He soon calmed down and then became very protective. We were young. In fact,before we were 25, we had all three of our children. I think that was good, you have more energy when you are young. 

After about three months, we were assigned to Alamogordo, New Mexcio and we moved.  We did other things while in Colorado, like sight see alot and went to the mountains regularly. They always said to be careful of Rocky Mountain Tic Fever. So we didn't go into the woods, but Colorado is a pretty state and someday, it would fun to visit it again.

 

I did manage to get a job within three days after arriving in Colorado. I went to work with Manpower and they kept me in jobs the whole time. I made more than Eddie. He made something like $76 every two weeks.  I made $70 a week. With that we managed to meet our bills. Isn't that amazing. I worked as a secretary. I could really type fast. So there are some thoughts about living in Denver Colorado, the first few months of our married life. 

Oh, we had two other couples that we were military friends with while we were there.  They were really nice and fun to visit with.