Part 7
In June 1952, I received a call from my dear friend, Tom Meli, in Pennsylvania. Tom was the one who tried to enlist in the Navy with me. Tom and Pat Lee were going to get married in a couple of weeks. He invited us to the wedding. Carole and I were excited to go to the wedding, and to visit with Mom and Dad. Tom said they planned to spend their honeymoon at our place. We went to the wedding. After the wedding, Tom and Pat left for our home stopping in Frostburg, Maryland to catch a motel. We left two days later. They had Mom Ives address in case they arrived earlier. They arrived in one of the hottest summers I can remember. It was over 110 degrees, and remained that way for over two weeks. The first night, we went to the Coast Guard Beach to cool off. The beach was loaded with people laying all over the beach. Tom looked like he was going to die with sweat running down his face. The next day, we went out in the boat. Tom and Pat had shorts on. That was a mistake. In fact that was the end of their honey moon. Their arms and legs got so blistered they couldn’t hardly go near one another. Other than the burns, they had a good time in Elizabeth City. They returned home to set up house keeping in Allenport.
We moved from the riverside apartment to Cousin Minnie’s upstairs apartment in town. There was little to be desired with this place, but we paid less rent. The linoleum was well worn, the walls were dirty and in need of painting. Carole did the best she could to clean the place. With the help of Big John, I painted. Big John was a 6 foot 3 inches tall black man , a worker on Dad Ives farm.
Two thoughts come to mind in this apartment. Dad Ives brought a live rooster for us to eat. He was a handsome fellow with blue and green tail feathers. I named the rooster Charlie, and didn’t want to kill him. He was with us about a week when Carole decided to prepare Charlie for supper. When I came home, I could smell the aroma of fried chicken. I sat down to eat and asked Carole, “Were’s Charlie?” She looked at me with a sheepish grin and said, “Your looking at him.” The chicken dinner looked great, but I lost my appetite. On another occasion we got a surprise visit. Carole’s sister Marty was married to Henry Cassel, a Coast Guard pilot. They were stationed in Alaska and had orders back to Corpus Christi, Texas. We didn’t know they were coming for a visit. One evening, we planned to go out, and I bought a fifth of Costairs whiskey. This was rot gut whiskey, but all I could afford. I sat the bottle on the table before Carole and I went up town. When we returned, a little whiskey was gone and a note “The whiskey was good, Henry.” Mom Ives was against drinking so Henry saved the day by taking a drink.
My tour with Blimps was coming to a close. Lieutenant Gardner had orders to Washington, DC. I made him a boat cover, and when he offered to pay me, I asked him to see if he could get me orders to shore duty. A month later, I received orders to the Naval Air Station, Kingsville, Texas. Carole didn’t seem very happy about going to Texas leaving her family behind. Lieutenant Garner didn’t do me any favors. Orders to the Norfolk area would have been much better. Norfolk was about 50 miles from Elizabeth City. Kingsville, located in southern Texas, was over 800 miles away.
Before going to Texas, we went to Pennsylvania to visit with Mom and Dad. While there, I traded the 41 Buick for a 46 Pontiac. On return to Elizabeth City, we loaded the car with everything we could carry. I was a 3rd Class Petty Officer. According to the Navy a sailor should be a 2nd Class Petty Officer or higher before getting married. The Navy did not ship anything for us. We didn’t own much, so it wasn’t a hardship. In January 1953, we arrived in Kingsville. We stayed in a motel outside of town till we found an apartment.
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