If all goes well, we will close on our condo tomorrow and the sale of our house on Tuesday. The movers pack up their truck on Wednesday, and we move into the condo Thursday. It will be a busy week. There will be joy, and I suspect some tears. After forty-three years, we’re outta here.
Ruth has done most of the packing. That’s really only fair because she bought most of the stuff. We sold a few pieces of furniture with the house, gave some tools and beach chairs to David, sent a couple of things to BZ and Michael, and have set aside more things for our California kids to be transferred at some other time. I blew a ton of leaves down to the beach the other day, the new owners can tackle the rest, and had some last minute thoughts about leaving here.
When we moved here in October of 1977, our friends, Ron and Diane Farr, and Ruth’s dad, Lou, helped us pack a U-Haul truck for the trip from Kalamazoo. We were thirty years old, and I had just finished my first few weeks at my new job in Addison. Rick and Jan Lane, our first Addison friends, helped unload the truck. We left two and a half year old, David, and six month old, Elizabeth with their Grandpa Jack and Grandma Em for the night. My Uncle Jack and Aunt Emma were their third set of grandparents.
The morning of the move, Ron, Lou, and I did most of the loading. Ruth and Diane did the final packing. At one point I asked Ruth to pack up the large freezer we kept in the basement. I knew it would be heavy enough as it was without the half side of beef that we recently purchased. When she reported that her mission was accomplished, Ron, Lou and I moved the freezer up the basement stairs. We had a hand truck with straps to secure the load, and a rope tied around the handle, because the freezer was taller than the truck. Ron pulled from the top, while Lou and I pushed from the bottom. About five steps up, the rope broke, and the load came flying down. Lou and I managed to slow it’s descent before it crashed into the furnace, but it still left a dent for the new owners. We doubled up the rope, regrouped, and made a successful second attempt. Once the freezer was securely on the truck, I asked Ruth what she had done with the bags of frozen food. Her reply was epic, “They’re in the freezer.”
When we arrived at Lake LeAnn, Rick and Jan appeared out of nowhere. They came to help us move. Jan worked with Ruth on finding the house, so as a full service realtor, she helped us move in. Rick was the middle school principal and a part of the interview team that brought me to Addison. I think he felt in some way responsible for my success and wanted me to be comfortable in my new district. We were beginning to form a friendship that continues today.
A big take-away from Ruth that day was Jan had the kitchen unpacked and organized by the time the rest of us unloaded the truck. She put things away just as Ruth would have wanted. It was like they shared the same brain.
That evening, Ron and Diane stayed with us. We had unpacked the truck, placed boxes and furniture in their appropriate rooms, unpacked the freezer before moving it to the lower level, and brought in a couple of pizzas for dinner. We slept on mattresses on the floor because we didn’t put the beds together that day. It was a cool October evening, so the heat kicked on during the night. It was the first night in our new home, and the first night we slept with baseboard hot water heat. The pipes rattled several times during the night. Even though I learned about “bleeding the air out of the lines”, it’s a sound that has lasted for forty-three years.
TBC