In the last installment of this series, it was the summer of 1980 and we had enjoyed a week on the east coast in Massachusetts, visiting friends and cramming in as many historical sites as we could. I nearly forgot to mention that Steve, being the sports guy he is, got to go to a football game in Foxboro Stadium (Patriot’s stadium — our motel was just down the street) with his friend Bruce. Even after seeing them play in person, Steve still hated the Patriots, like any good Hoosier. While the boys were at the game, I went to the horse track with Bruce’s wife Jan. I had never been to a horse race before, nor since. I made very small bets and only picked the horses with names I liked. Broke even, which was good.
It was going to be a long drive home from New England (18 hours, with an overnight somewhere in Pennsylvania). We had only gotten as far as Connecticut, when my water broke (I was three and half months pregnant). We stopped at the nearest Med-Check and they told us to spend the night in a motel and go to the hospital in the morning. At the hospital the doctor said, I was probably going to miscarry, but to get home as soon as possible. So, we drove straight through. I visited my doctor, who ordered bed rest (before ultrasounds were used) and I was in bed for a month, before I had the miscarriage. We were very upset, but the timing hadn’t been good, with Steve still in school. We still hoped to expand the family before too long.
Steve still managed to go to school, work more than one part-time job, and help with our daughter. Luckily, he made decent grades since he was such a good writer, which really helps in college. He could BS on any paper that was due. I corrected the spelling.
He worked at Central Library downtown, and he actually enjoyed it. The building was beautiful and he made a lot of lifelong friends. On his 30th birthday, some of these friends – Jim Cannon, Tom Short, Jack Widner and Hugh Harrigan — took him out to dinner and drinking at St. Elmo’s Steak House, with a $240 bar tab of all the best wines from their wine cellar. Steve’s tongue was purple when he got home! He almost never drank so this was the only time in his entire life, I saw him drunk!
He usually worked Sundays and I remember him saying the homeless fellows would come in and argue with each other over the Sunday newspaper. But they knew not to make a scene and to keep as quiet as possible or they would be asked to leave the building.
Before anyone could Google questions like “what did George Washington die from?” people could call the library information desk and they would find the answer. Sometimes Steve would be the one answering, so he got really good at trivia (that, and majoring in history). We had a Trivial Pursuit Game and he would beat all of his friends. I remember one game, six of us played against Steve, including other librarians and a med student, and we still lost! Steve even tried to apply for Jeopardy!, but back then they wouldn’t let librarians be contestants, because information was their job.
Last time, I told you about someone stealing our little dog. And that cat we had when we first got married ran away after Mary Beth was born. I’m not sure where we got a little kitten (maybe a friend of Steve’s Mom?) that our daughter named “Snuffy.” He was a Himalayan, which is a cross between a Persian and a Siamese (nowadays they cost on average $1,000). His temperament was very sweet and affectionate. He was shades of gray with blue eyes. Snuffy was beautiful and smart. He could reach his paw under our front porch screen door and pull it open to come in. He started bringing in his girlfriend, a little white stray cat the neighbor kids had named “Tina.” Unfortunately, Snuffy was similarly kidnapped (or should I say catnapped) and Mary Beth was again heartbroken. We realized Tina was pregnant, and were excited to have one of his off-spring, so we took her in. On Valentine’s Day, Tina went into labor on my lap and I sat her down on Mary Beth’s blankie (she’d been dragging it around for years, but that was the end of blankie) and Tina gave birth to two kittens, one all white and one all black kitten (which we named Cupid and Valentine). No traces of Snuffy’s lineage. We found homes on a friend’s farm for the kittens and Tina ran off on her own (she was always in heat!).
Not long after, we found a tiny stray kitten that looked an awful lot like Snuffy— blue eyes and the same coloring, but with a little tabby added in. But after a couple days, she disappeared. A few months later, during our daughter’s seventh birthday party, her neighbor friend Alexis brought that same kitten, a little bigger, as a gift. Mary Beth named her Nina, because it was the name of both a girl in her class and a character on the TV soap All My Children, that she would watch with me. Nina lived for 20 years!
Soon after getting Nina, our friends Bruce and Jan brought an orange and white tom cat home from Boston, when they moved back, and convinced us to keep him (their new apartment didn’t allow pets). Our daughter wanted to name him Ginger, but Steve explained that this cat was an old man, and would want a more manly name “like Fido, Butch, or Jack Widner.” Taking his insider library joke literally, she thought those were her only choices and picked Butch. So Boston Butch became part of the family, and super shy Nina bonded with him. The two cats would cuddle together on our daughter’s bed, groom each other, and meow to climb in and out of her bedroom window at night.
After 5 years of college, Steve had decided he would be a teacher (English or Social Studies). He was ready to do his student teaching, when the city laid off 600 teachers. His counselor said don’t even apply for student teaching, as the district only needed math and science teachers. Since he liked the library, the only other option was to get his masters and be a librarian. I’ll never forget our daughter worrying about going to 13 years of school, then another 4 years to college, and then having to pick a graduate school! We said “don’t worry, just worry about getting out of first grade”.
I threw Steve a surprise graduation party and lots of friends and family came.
When Steve finished enough library courses (half a graduate degree) he was certified and could get a real librarian job. IUPUI had moved all the library science classes to Bloomington, and to finish he would have had to commute. There was no way that was going to work, so he was fine with the certification. His first real librarian job was in Extension Services, which was the department that had the Bookmobiles, outreach programs, and visited shut-ins. He liked the Bookmobile and having regular patrons, who would request specific books and he would bring them the following week. He made good friends with the driver, and the clerk, Goldie Ingram (who could sing like an angel, she still performs at the Jazz Kitchen and around Indy).
When Steve was doing home visits to shut ins, one month the department head decided to have everyone switch jobs, so they could have different experiences. Steve had one older skinny gent he took books to that lived in an old apartment building with no air-conditioning. He would always be naked when Steve stopped by with books, because of the heat. Steve didn’t really mind, but he worried about which other female librarian was going to have to visit him. Another elderly woman he visited had a landlord greet him on the stairs outside her apartment and ask if something happened to her, could he call Steve!
Part of Steve’s job was to take film programs to nursing homes too and many times the staff would leave him alone with the residents. There was one elderly lady who would keep pinching him on the butt. Those were crazy times!
Next time: A son is born!
