In the last installment of this series, Steve had gone to Grad school and become a full time Librarian in Extension/Bookmobile Services.
Mary Beth was eight years old and we decided it was time to take her to Disney World. Steve’s Dad Uncle Bernard lived in Florida. The 1982 World’s Fair was going on too in Knoxville Tennessee and I had a cousin who lived near there, Roger. He grew up in Lafayette, but moved south to work in a nuclear power plant in Carthage. He had a friend who wrote country music and he promoted him into becoming a successful songwriter. Roger had three beautiful daughters around our daughter’s age, so we had a great time visiting them. Roger looked like Elvis!
The World’s Fair was very crowded, as you can imagine, and on two levels and one of the only ways to get from one level to the other was to go through a candy store (which did great business!).
In Florida we got a motel in Kissimmee, which was just an orange grove drive to Disney World (tickets were only $7.50). We found a little diner on the way that was owned by a transplanted Irvingtonian with great food. We went to the Magic Kingdom and it poured down rain most of the day. Everyone bought white plastic raincoats with pointed hoods and it looked like a meeting of the Klan. The crowd was light, so lines were non-existent. We got to ride everything, including Pirates of the Caribbean three times! (Steve’s favorite ride, along with the Haunted Mansion.) It stopped raining just in time for the evening parade and then started up again. Late afternoon, Mary Beth started running out of steam; she was soaked and she had gotten sick after the Mad Hatter Tea Cups. I bought her a stuffed Winnie the Pooh and she bounced back, ready to go until 11 p.m. I remember us wandering through the huge parking lot in the downpour, trying to find our car that night (it was in the Goofy lot). Mary Beth wore white anklets and navy blue canvas shoes, which dyed those socks blue. It was so warm it was like being in a bath all day. Mary Beth became quite a Mickey Mouse fan, and to this day has quite a collection of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, many which are toys from her childhood.
We continued down into Florida, where we visited Steve’s Uncle Bernard and Aunt Gladys in St. Petersburg, as well as Cousin Barbara. They lived in a “snow bird” neighborhood (mostly Canadian residents who were only there in the winter). We had 3 swimming pools to ourselves!
We also went with Steve’s Cousin Jeff (Barbara’s son) to Busch Gardens in Tampa, with lovely African animals. After seeing all of the animatronic rides at Disney (i.e., Jungle Cruise) it was fun for Mary Beth to see real animals. And I’m pretty sure Steve and I got a free beer!
That fall, I was asked by Ray Rice on Channel 8 to do an Arts & Crafts demonstration on the noon news (I had been working at Lee Wards for 9 years). I started doing 5 minute segments on Tuesdays, right after the weather forecast. That started a 33 week run (that little did I know, I was pregnant with our son for part of). The craft presentations were live during the show, which led to many funny moments. Steve would accompany me and then we would go to lunch downtown after the show. One of our favorite places for lunch was Hattie’s on north Illinois. It was owned by a black woman who knew how to make the simplest foods into something mouth-watering. I love southern home cooking and this was the place for chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and turnip greens. The day’s menu was written on a blackboard on the wall.
My 33 week television career ended when Lee Wards laid off all the full timers and I was included. I was of course stressed out. At the same time, my monthly had stopped suddenly. After a doctor’s exam (too early) and 2 home pregnancy tests (all negative), I found out at 12 weeks I was pregnant (no other symptoms). I did get unemployment, but who’s hiring a pregnant woman?!
Our son Chris was born November 16, 1983 (10 years younger than his big sister). The morning I went into labor, Steve was at Naval Avionics on the Bookmobile. It was way before cell phones, so I had to leave a message. I was at the doctor’s office, and was going me straight to the hospital. Steve met me at the doctor’s office and said he was afraid the battery was going out in the Nova he drove. He left it running at the doctor’s office as he came in to get me. Later that night after the baby as born, Steve had to get a ride from a nice lady in the hospital parking lot, after it wouldn’t start.
I had no hard labor and didn’t remember it being that easy. Steve and I watched my favorite soap, All My Children as the doctor came in to examine me and broke my water. He said I was dilated to 10, but the baby was in South Bend (not in the birth canal)! I was whisked off to OR for a C-section. The umbilical cord was wrapped around our baby’s neck, but he was fine.
We named him Christopher Douglas and he had reddish hair. Douglas was after Steve’s great-grandmother’s maiden name. Steve and his father both had the middle name Douglas as well. Chris looks a lot like Steve, and even more like his grandfather — definitely a Nicewanger. Chris was a good baby, but a wild toddler. He liked to play knights with his sword in front of the living room mirrored door. That continued as he got a little older, and he would hit Mary Beth’s boyfriends with his plastic swords.
Being 10 years older, Mary Beth was a second mother to Chris and spoiled him more than we did. They are still very close as adults.
Both kids inherited their father’s love of film. Steve was quite a movie buff. His mother had loved to watch movies too, so that’s where the love of film started. The two of them would start talking about some old movie and the actors in detail at every holiday meal. Steve’s sister Janet called many times with movie trivia questions. We have a good friend Debbie Lane, who worked for RCA and she had the first VCR we ever saw. Cost her $1,200 (with an employee discount!) and it weighed a ton. We would go to her house and watch movies and eat popcorn and have so much fun. The first movies we ever watched on tape with her were M*A*S*H and Forbidden Planet.
We got a VCR too when the price came down and Steve started his movie collection. He taped 3 movies on each VCR tape. My daughter and I started a card catalog (library style) as a gift for Steve. We numbered each tape and wrote info on index cards. Then he continued to maintain the collection. That means I have over 2,000 movies on VCR tapes in cabinets all over the house! As the years passed, and technology changed, Steve started buying DVDs and eventually we finally got cable, HBO and Showtime, but still there were so many Friday nights we could not seem to find something we really wanted to watch! One of Steve’s favorite movies was the Wolf Man from 1941 starring Lon Chaney Jr. He had quite a collection of artifacts, from action figures to a full-size Werewolf that howls!
When Chris was two and a half years old, we took another trip to the east coast. My sister Gail was graduating from Harvard with a Masters in Architecture. We planned a two week trip and drove over 2,000 miles. The graduation was very cool and I remember they served a boxed lunch of Vichyssoise (cold fish soup). Gail showed us the sights in Boston and then she took us to Nantucket for a long weekend. My mother and brother had flown in. We didn’t tell my Mom that we’d have to go on a ferry for over an hour. She was afraid of water and the day was cold and raining.
Nantucket is an island that is the last little dot on a map off the coast of Cape Cod. It’s beautiful and very expensive. Gail rented us an apartment in a newly built summer rental and it had extra bedrooms for the rest of the family. We explored the picturesque harbor, beaches and shops. My mother had never seen the ocean, let alone set foot in it. We captured the moment on film.
The owners of the rental lived next door. We asked the wife where we could get a swordfish dinner (Steve’s favorite) that wasn’t going to break the bank. She said her husband (a fisherman) could bring us all we could eat for $25. Fresh! We cooked up our own delicious swordfish dinner.
After we left Massachusetts, we went on to Washington D.C. We got stuck in traffic on a hill in Connecticut for an hour (traffic accident ahead) and Steve got so mad, he wanted to go home right then. The Nova wasn’t air-conditioned and we had a toddler, but we did have a cooler of food and drinks so we stuck it out.
In DC on the walk from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol, our umbrella stroller broke and Steve had to carry our fat toddler the rest of the day. It was 98 degrees! We saw Ted Kennedy speak in the Senate and ran into Tip O’Neill (speaker of the House) in the elevator. Steve had minored in Political Science, so he was so thrilled! We went to the White House and the Smithsonian too. In the Smithsonian, I used a wheelchair as a stroller, but Chris kept standing up. Wonderful memories!
Next, we stopped in Virginia Beach to see Steve’s cousin Carol and stayed with her in her mobile home. We did the touristy thing at Williamsburg. It was a very long and enjoyable trip.
Next Time: Good friend’s tragedy
